
Qass. 
Book- 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



VESTIGES OF THE MAYAS, 



Facts tendinis to prove that Communications and Intimate Relations must have 
existed, in very remote times, between the inhabitants of 



M A T A B 



AND THOSE OF 



.A-Si.^ ^^isrx) ^a^:fi?,ic.a.- 



AUGUSTUS Le PLONGEON, M. D., 

Member of the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Mass., of the California 

Academy of Sciences, and. several other Scientific Societies. Author of various 

Essays and Scientific Works. 




NEW YORK : 
JOHN POLHEMUS, PKINTER AISID STATIONER, 
102 NASSAU STREET. 

1881. 



\ 



^>^ 



/ 






TO 



MR. PIERRE LORILLARD. 

. Who deserves the thanks of the students of American Archaeology more 
than you, for the interest manifested in the explorations of the ruined monu- 
ments of Central America, handiwork of the races that inhabited this con- 
tinent in remote ages, and the material help given by you to Foreign and 
American explorers in that field of investigations ? 

Accept, then, my personal thanks, with the dedication of this small 
Essay. It forms part of the result of many years' study and hardships 
among the ruined cities of the Incas, in Peru, and of the Mayas in Yucatan. 

Yours very respectfully, 

AUGUSTUS Le PLONGEON, M. D. 

New York, December 15, 1881. 



Entured according to an Act of Congress, in December, 1881, 

By AUGUSTUS Le PLONGBON, 

In the Office of the Librarian op Congress in Washington, D. C. 



tl 



VESTIGES OF THE MAYAS. 

YucATAisr is the peninsula which divides the Gfulf of 
Mexico from the Caribbean Sea. It is comprised between 
the 17° 30' and 21° 50', of latitude north, and the 88° 
and 91° of longitude west from the Greenwich meridian. 

The whole peninsula is of fossiferous limestone for- 
mation. Elevated a few feet only above the sea, on the 
coasts, it gradually raises toward the interior, to a maxi- 
mum height of above 70 feet. A bird' s-eye view, from a 
lofty building, impresses the beholder with the idea that 
he is looking on an immense sea of verdure, having the 
horizon for boundary ; without a hill, not even a hillock, 
to break the monotony of the landscape. Here and there 
clusters of palm trees, or artificial mounds, covered with 
shrubs, loom above the green dead-level as islets, over 
that expanse of green foliage, affording a momentary 
relief to the eyes growing tired of so much sameness. 

About fifty miles from the northwestern coast begins a 
low, narrow range of hills, whose highest point is not 
much above 500 feet. It traverses the peninsula in a 
direction a little south from east, commencing a few 
miles north from the ruined city of Uxmal, and termi- 
nating some distance from the eastern coast, opposite to 
the magnificent bay of Ascension. 

Lately I have noticed that some veins of red oxide of 
iron exist among these hills— quarries of marble must 
also be found there ; since the sculptured ornaments 
that adorn the facade of all the monuments at Uxmal are 
of that stone. To-day the inhabitants of Yucatan are 
even ignorant of the existence of these minerals in their 
country, and ocher to paint, and marble slabs to floor 



their houses, are imported from abroad. I have also 
discovered veins of good lithographic stones that could 
be worked at comparatively little expense. 

The surface of the country is undulating ; its stony 
waves recall forcibly to the mind the heavy swell of mid- 
ocean. It seems as if, in times long gone by, the soil was 
upheaved, en masse, from the bottom of the sea, by vol- 
canic forces. This upheaval must have taken place 
many centuries ago, since isolated columns of Katuns 
Im. 50c. square, erected at least 6,000 years ago, stand 
yet in the same perpendicular position, as at the time 
when another stone was added to those already piled up, 
to indicate a lapse of twenty years in the life of the 
nation. 

It is, indeed, a remarkable fact, that whilst the sur- 
rounding countries — Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba and the 
other West India Islands — are frequently convulsed by 
earthquakeSjthe peninsula of Yucatan is entirely free from 
these awe-inspiring convulsions of mother earth. This im- 
munity may be attributed, in my opinion, to the innumer- 
able and extensive caves with which the whole country 
is entirely honeycombed ; and the large number of im- 
mense natural wells, called Senotes, that are to be found 
everywhere. These caves and senotes afford an outlet 
for the escape of the gases generated in the super- 
ficial strata of the earth. These, finding no resistance to 
their passage, follow, harmlessly, these vents without 
producing on the surface any of those terrible commotions 
that fill the heart of man and beast alike with fright 
and dismay. 

Some of those caves are said to be very extensive — 
None, however, has been thoroughly explored. I have 
visited a few, certainly extremely beautiful, adorned as 
they are with brilliant stalactites depending from their 
roofs, that seem as if supported by the stalagmites that 
must have required ages to be formed gradually from the 
floor into the massive columns, as we see them to-day. 

In all the caves are to be found either inexhaustible 



springs of clear, pure, cold water, or streams inhabited 
by shrimps and fishes. No one can tell whence they 
come or where they go. All currents of water are sub- 
terraneous. Not a river is to be found on the surface ; 
not even the smallest of streamlets, where the birds of 
the air, or the wild beasts of the forests, can allay 
their thirst during the dry season. The plants, if there 
are no chinks or crevices in the stony soil through which 
their roots can penetrate and seek the life-sustaining 
fluid below, wither and die. It is a curious sight that 
presented by the roots of the trees, growing on the 
precipituous brinks of the senates, in their search for 
water. They go down and down, even a hundred feet, 
until they reach , the liquid surface, from where they 
suck up the fluid to aliment the body of the tree. They 
seem like many cables and ropes stretched all round the 
sides of the well ; and, in fact, serves as such to some of 
the most daring of the natives, to ascend or descend to 
enjoy a refreshing bath. 

These senoies are immense circular holes, the diameter 
of which varies from 50 to 500 feet, with perpendicular 
walls from 50 to 150 feet deep. These holes might be 
supposed to have served as ducts for the subterranean 
gases at the time of the upheaval of the country. Now 
they generally contain water. In some, the current is 
easily noticeable ; many are completely dry ; whilst 
others contain thermal mineral water, emitting at times 
strong sulphurous odor and vapor. 

Many strange stories are told by the aborigines con- 
cerning the properties possessed by the water in certain 
senotes, and the strange phenomena that takes place in 
others. In one, for example, you are warned to ap- 
proach the water walking backward, and to breathe 
very softly, otherwise it becomes turbid and unfit for 
drinking until it has settled and become clear again. In 
another you are told not to speak above a whisper, for 
if any one raises the voice the tranquil surface of the 
water immediately becomes agitated, and soon assumes 



s 

tlie appearance of boiling ; even its level raises. These 
and many other things are told in connection with 
the caves and senotes ; and we find them mentioned in 
the writings of the chroniclers and historians from the 
time of the Spanish conquest. 

"No lakes exist on the surface, at least within the ter- 
ritories occupied by the white men. Some small sheets 
of water, called aguadas, may be found here and there, 
and are fed by the underground current ; but they are 
very rare. There are three or four near the ruins of the 
ancient city of Mayapan : probably its inhabitants 
found in them an abundant supply of water. Following 
all the same direction, they are, as some suppose, no 
doubt with reason, the outbreaks of a subterranean 
stream that comes also to the surface in the senote of 
Mucuyche. A mile or so from Uxmal is another aguada ; 
but judging from the great number of artificial reser- 
voirs, built on the terraces and in the courts of all the 
monuments, it would seem as if the people there de- 
pended more on the clouds for their provision of water 
than on the wells and senotes. Yet I feel confident that 
one of these must exist under the building known as 
the Grovernor' s house ; having discovered in its imme- 
diate vicinity the entrance — now closed — of a cave from 
which a cool current of air is continually issuing ; at 
times with great force. 

I have been assured by Indians from the village of Che- 
max, who pretend to know that part of the country well, 
that, at a distance of about fifty miles from the city of 
Valladolid, the actual largest settlement on the eastern 
frontier, in the territories occupied by the Santa Ceuz 
Indians, there exists, near the ruins of Kaba^ two exten- 
sive sheets of water, from where, in years gone by, the in- 
habitants of Valladolid procured abundant supply of ex- 
cellent fishes. These ruins of Kaba, said to be very inter- 
esting, have never been visited by any foreigner ; nor are 
they likely to be for many years to come, on account of 
the imminent danger of falling into the hands of those 



i 



of Santa Cruz — that, since 1847, wage war to tlie knife 
against the Yucatecans. 

On the coast, the sea penetrating in the lowlands have 
formed sloughs and lakes, on the shores of which thickets 
of mangroves grow, with tropical luxuriancy. Interming- 
ling their crooked roots, they form such a barrier as to 
make landing well nigh impossible. These small lakes, 
subject to the ebb and flow of the tides, are the resort of 
innumerable sea birds and water fowls of all sizes and 
descriptions ; from the snipe to the crane, and brightly 
colored flamingos, from the screeching sea gulls to the 
serious looking pelican. They are attracted to these 
lakes by the solitude of the forests of mangroves that 
afford them excellent shelter, where to build their nests, 
and find protection from the storms that, at certain season 
of the year, sweep with untold violence along the coast : 
and because with ease they can procure an abundant 
supply of food, these waters being inhabited by myriads 
of fishes, as they come to bask on the surface which is 
seldom ruffled even when the tempest rages outside. 

Notwithstanding the want of superficial water, the air 
is always charged with moisture; the consequence being 
a most equable temperature all the year round, and an 
extreme luxuriance of all vegetation. The climate is 
mild and comparatively healthy for a country situated 
within the tropics, and bathed by the waters of the Mex- 
ican Grulf. This mildness and healthiness may be attri- 
buted to the sea breezes that constantly pass over the 
peninsula, carrying the malaria and noxious gases that 
have not been absorbed by the forests, which cover the 
main portion of the land ; and to the great abundance of 
oxygen exuded by the plants in return. This excessive 
moisture and the decomposition of dead vegetable matter 
is the cause of the intermittent fevers that prevail in all 
parts of the peninsula, where the yellow fever, under a 
mild form generally, is also endemic. When it appears, 
as this year, in an epidemic form, the natives themselves 
enjoy no immunity from its ravages, and fall victims to 
it as well as unacclimated foreigners. 



10 

These epidemics, those of smallpox and other diseases 
that at times make their appearance in Yucatan, gener- 
ally present themselves after the rainy season, particu- 
larly if the rains have been excessive. The country being 
extremely flac, the drainage is necessarily very bad : and 
in places like Merida, for example, where a crowding of 
population exists, and the cleanliness of the streets is 
utterly disregarded by the proper authorities, the de- 
composition of vegetable and animal matter is very large; 
and the miasmas generated, being carried with the vapors 
arising from the constant evaporation of stagnant waters, 
are the origin of those scourges that decimate the inhabi- 
tants. Yucatan, isolated as it is, its small territory nearly 
surrounded by water, ought to be, if the laws of health 
were properly enforced, one of the most healthy countries 
on the earth; where, as in the Island of Cozumel, people 
should only die of old age or accident. The thermometer 
varies but little, averaging about 80° Far. True, it rises in 
the months of July and August as high as 96° in the shade, 
but it seldom falls below 65° in the month of December. 
In the dry season, from January to June, the trees be- 
come divested of their leaves, that fall more particularly 
in March and April. Then the sun, returning from the 
south on its way to the north, passes over the land and 
darts its scorching perpendicular rays on it, causing 
every living creature to thirst for a drop of cool water; 
the heat being increased by the burning of those parts of 
the forests that have been cut down to prepare fields for 
cultivation. 

In the portion of the peninsula, about one-third of 
it, that still remains in possession of the white, the 
Santa Cruz Indians holding, since 1847, the richest and 
most fertile, two- thirds, the soil is entirely stony. The 
arable loam, a few inches in thickness, is the result 
of the detriti of the stones, mixed with the remainder 
of the decomposition of vegetable matter. In certain 
districts, towards the eastern and southern parts of 
the State, patches of red clay form excellent ground 



11 

for the cultivation of the sugar cane and Yuca root. 
From this an excellent starch is obtained in large quan- 
tities. Withal, the soil is of astonishing fertility, and 
trees, even, are met with of large size, whose roots 
run on the surface of the bare stone, penetrating the 
chinks and crevices only in search of moisture. Often 
times'! have seen them growing from the center of slabs, 
the seed having fallen in a hole that happened to be bored 
in them. In the month of May the whole country seems 
parched and dry. Not a leaf, not a bud. The branches 
and boughs are naked, and covered with a thick coating 
of gray dust. Nothing to intercept the sight in the 
thicket but the bare trunks and branches, with the withes 
entwining them. With the first days of June come the 
first refreshing showers. As if a magic wand had been 
waved over the land, the view changes — life springs every- 
where. In the short space of a few days the forests have 
resumed their holiday attire ; buds appear and the leaves 
shoot ; the flowers bloom sending forth their fragrance, 
that wafted by the bretze perfume the air far and near. 
The birds sing their best songs of joy ; the insects chirp 
their shrillest notes ; butterflies of gorgeous colors flutter 
in clouds in every direction in search of the nectar con- 
tained in the cups of the newly-opened blossom, and dis- 
pute it with the brilliant humming-birds. All creation 
rejoices because a few tears of mother Nature have 
brought joy and happiness to all living beings, from the 
smallest blade of grass to the majestic palm ; from the 
creeping worm to man, who proudly titles himself the 
lord of creation. 

Yucatan has no rich metallic mines, but its wealth of 
vegetable productions is immense. Large forests of 
mahogany, cedar, zapotillo trees cover vast extents of 
land in the eastern and southern portions of the peninsula; 
whilst patches of logwood and mora, many miles in 
length, grow near the coast. The wood is to-day cut 
down and exported by the Indians of Santa Cruz through 
their agents at Belize. Coffee, vanilla, tobacco, India- 



12 

rubber, rosins of various kinds, copal in particular, all of 
good quality, abound in the country, but are not culti- 
vated on account of its unsettled state ; the Indians re- 
taining possession of the most fertile territories where 
these rich products are found. 

The whites have been reduced to the culture of the 
Hennequen plant (agave sisalensis) in order to subsist. 
It is the only article of commerce that grows well on the 
stony soil to which they are now confined. The fila- 
ment obtained from the plant, and the objects manu- 
factured from it constitute the principal article of export; 
in fact the only source of wealth of the Yucatecans. 
As the filament is now much in demand for the fabri- 
cation of cordage in the United States and Europe, many 
of the landowners have ceased to x:)lant maize, although 
the staple article of food in all classes, to convert their 
land into hennequen fields. The plant thrives well on 
stony soil, requires no water and but little care. The 
natural consequence of planting the whole country with 
hennequen has been so great a deficiency in the maize 
crop, that this year not enough was grown for the con- 
sumption, and people in the northeastern district were 
beginning to suffer from the want of it, when some mer- 
chants of Merida imported large quantities from New 
York. They, of course, sold it at advanced prices, much 
to the detriment of the poorer classes. Some sugar is 
also cultivated in the southern and eastern districts, 
but not in sufficient quantities even for the consump- 
tion ; and not a little is imported from Habana. 

The population of the country, about 250,000 souls 
all told, are mostly Indians and mixed blood. In 
fact, very few families can be found of pure Caucasian 
race. Notwithstanding the great admixture of different 
races, a careful observer can readily distinguish yet 
four prominent ones, very noticeable by their features, 
their stature, the conformation of their body. The 
dwarfish race is certainly easily distinguishable from 
the descendants of the giants that tradition says once 



13 

upon a time existed in the country, whose bones are 
yet found, and whose portraits are painted on the walls 
of Chaacmol's funeral chamber at Chichen-Itza. The 
almond-eyed, flat-nosed Siamese race of Copan is not to 
be mistaken for the long, big-nosed, flat-headed remnant 
of the Nahualt from Palenque, who are said to have in- 
vaded the country some time at the beginning of the 
Christian era; and whose advent among the Mayas, whose 
civilization they appear to have destroyed, has been com- 
memorated by calling the west, the region whence they 
came, according to Landa, Cogolludo and other his- 
torians, i^OHisriAL, a word which means literally hig noses 
for our daughters ; whilst the coming of the bearded men 
from the east, better looking than those of the west, if 
we are to give credit to the bas-relief where their portraits 
are to be seen, was called gei^i at,— ornaments for our 
daughters. 

If we are to judge by the great number of ruined cities 
scattered everywhere through the forests of the peniu; 
sula ; by the architectural beauty of the monuments still 
extant, the specin\ens of their artistic attainments in 
drawing and sculpture which have reached us in the 
bas-reliefs, statues and mural paintings of Uxmal and 
Chichen-Itza ; by their knowledge in mathematical and 
astronomical sciences, as manifested in the construction 
of the gnomon found by me in the ruins of Mayapan ; 
by the complexity of the grammatical form and syntaxis 
of their language, still spoken to-day by the majority of 
the inhabitants of Yucatan ; by their mode of express- 
ing their thoughts on paper, made from the bark of cer- 
tain trees, with alphabetical and phonetical characters, 
we must of necessity believe that, at some time or other, 
the country was not only' densely populated, but that 
the inhabitants had reached a high degree of civilization. 
To-day we can conceive of very few of their attainments 
by the scanty remains of their handiwork, as they have 
come to us injured by the hand of time, and, more so 
yet, by that of man, during the wars, the invasions, the 



14 

social and religious convulsions which have taken place 
among these people, as among all other nations. Only 
the opening of the buildings which, contain the libraries 
of their learned men, and the reading of their works, 
could solve the mystery, and cause us to know how 
much they had advanced in the discovery and explana- 
tion of Nature' s arcana ; how much they knew of man- 
kind's past history, and of the nations with which they 
held intercourse. Let us hope that the day may yet 
come when the Mexican government will grant to me 
the requisite permission, in order that I may bring forth, 
from the edifices where they are hidden, the precious 
volumes, without opposition from the owners of the pro- 
perty where the monuments exist. Until then we must 
content ourselves with the study of the inscriptions 
carved on the walls, and becoming acquainted with ihe 
history of their builders, and continue to conjecture 
what knowledge they possessed in order to be able to 
rear such enduring structures, besides the art of design- 
ing the plans and ornaments, and the manner of carving 
them on stone. 

Let us place ourselves in the position of the archaeolo- 
gists of thousands of years to come, examining the ruins 
of our great cities, finding still on foot some of the 
stronger built palaces and public buildings, with some 
rare specimens of the arts, sciences, industry of our 
days, the minor edifices having disappeared, gnawed by 
the steely tooth of time, together with the many pro- 
ducts of our industry, the machines of all kinds, creation 
of man's ingenuity, and his powerful helpmates. What 
would they know of the attainments and the progress 
in mechanics of our days 1 Would they be able to form 
a complete idea of our civilization, and of the knowledge 
of our scientific men, without the help of the volumes 
contained in our public libraries, and maybe of some one 
able to interpret themi Well, it seems to me that we 
stand in exactly the same position concerning the civil- 
ization of those who have preceded us five or ten thou- 



15 

sand years ago on this continent, as these future archaeol- 
ogists may stand regarding our civilization five or ten 
thousand years hence. 

It is a fact, recorded by all historians of the Conquest, 
that vs^hen for the first time in 1517 the Spaniards came 
in sight of the lands called by them Yucatan, they were 
surprised to see on the coast many monuments well 
built of stone : and to find the country strewn with large 
cities and beautiful monuments that recalled to their 
memory the best of Spain. They were no less astonished 
to meet in the inhabitants, not naked savages, but a 
civilized people, possessed of polite and pleasant man- 
ners, dressed in white cotton habiliments, navigating 
large boats propelled by sails, traveling on well con- 
structed roads and causeways that, in point of beauty 
and solidity, could compare advantageously with similar 
Roman structures in Spain, Italy, England or France. 

I will not describe here the majestic monuments raised 
by the Mayas. Mrs. Le Plongeon, in her letters to the 
New TorTc World, has given of those of Uxmal, Ake 
and Matapan, the only correct description ever pub- 
lished. My object at present is to relate some of the 
curious facts revealed to us by their weather-beaten and 
crumbling walls, and show how erroneous is the opinion 
of some European scientists, who think it not worth 
while to give a moment of their precious time to the i 
study of American archseolog^y, because say they : No <^ 
relations ha'oe ever heen found to have existed l)etween\, 
the monuments and cimlizations of the inhabitants of 1 
this continent and those of the old world. On what i 
ground they hazard such an opinion it is difficult to sur- ' 
mise, since to my knowledge the ancient ruined cities of 
Yucatan, until lately, have never been thoroughly, much 
less scientifically, explored. The same is true of the 
other monumental ruins of the whole of Central 
America. 

When Mrs. Le Plongeon and myself landed at Pro- 
gresso, in 1873, we thought that because we had read the 



16 

works of Stephens, Waldeck, JSTorman, Fredeichstal ; 
carefully examined the few photographic views made by 
Mr. Charnay of some of the monuments, we knew all 
about them. Alas ! vain presumption ! When in pres- 
ence of the antique shrines and palaces of the Mayas, we 
soon saw how mistaken we had been ; how little those 
writers had seen of the monuments they had pretended 
to describe : that tlie work of studying them systemat- 
ically was not even begun; and that many years of close 
observation and patient labor would be necessary in order 
to dispel the mysteries which hang over them, and to 
discover the hidden meaning of their ornaments and in- 
scriptions. To this difScult task we resolved to dedicate 
our time, and to concentrate our efforts to find a solution, 
if possible, to the enigma. 

We began our work by taking photographs of all the 
monuments in their tout ensemble, and in all their de- 
tails, as much as practicable. Next, we surveyed them 
carefully ; made accurate plans of them in order to be 
able to comprehend by the disposition of their different 
parts, for what possible use they were erected ; 
taking, as a starting point, that the human mind and 
human inclinations and wants are the same in all times, 
in all countries, in all races when civilized and cultured. 
We next carefully examined what conneciion the orna- 
ments bore to each other, and tried to understand the 
meaning of the designs. At first the maze of these de- 
signs seemed a very difiicult riddle to solve. Yet, we 
believed that if a human intelligence had devised it, an- 
other human intelligence would certainly be able to 
unravel it. It was not, however, until we had nearly 
completed the tracing and study of the mural paintings, 
still extant in the funeral chamber of Chaacmol, or room 
built on the top of the eastern wall of the gymnasium at 
Chichen-Itza, at its southern end, that Stephens mistook 
for a shrine dedicated to the god of the players at ball, 
that a glimmer of light began to dawn upon us. In trac- 
ing the figure of Chaacmol in battle, I remarked that the 



17 



-N 



shield worn by him had painted on it round green spots, 
and was exactly like the ornaments placed between tiger 
and tiger on the entablature of the same monument. I 
naturally concluded that the monument had been raised 
to the memory of the warrior bearing the shield ; that 
the tigers- represented his totem, and that Qhaacmol or 
Balam maya words for spotted tiger or leopard, was his 
name. I then remembered that at about one hundred 
yards in the thicket from the edifice, in an easterly direc- 
tion, a few days before, I had noticed the ruins of a 
remarkable mound of rather small dimensions. It was 
ornamented with slabs engraved with the images of 
spotted tigers, eating human hearts, forming magnificent 
bas-reliefs, conserving yet traces of the colors in which 
it was formerly painted. I repaired to the place. Doubts 
were no longer possible. The same round dots, forming 
the spots of their skins, were present here as on the shield 
of the warrior in battle, and that on the entablature of 
the building. On examining carefully the ground around 
the mound, I soon stumbled upon what seemed to be a half 
buried statue. On clearing the debris we found a statue 
in the round, representing a wounded tiger reclining on 
his right side. Three holes in the back indicated the 
places where he received his wounds. It was headless. 
A few feet further, I found a human head with the eyes ' 
half closed, as those of a dying person. When placed \ 
on the neck of the tiger it fitted exactly. I propped it | 
with sticks to keep it in place. So arranged, it recalled > 
vividly the Chaldean and Egyptian deities having heads | 
of human beings and bodies of animals. The next object 
that called my attention was another slab on which was 
represented in bas-relief a dying warrior, reclining on his 
back, the head was thrown entirely backwards. His left 
arm was placed across his chest, the left hand resting on 
the right shoulder, exactly in the same position which 
the Egyptians were wont, at times, to give to the mum- 
mies of some of their eminent men. From his mouth 
was seen escaping two thin, narrow flames— the spirit of 



18 

the dying man abandoning the body with the last warm 
breath. 

These and many other sculptures caused me to suspect 
that this monument had been the mausoleum raised to 
the memory of the wurrior with the shield covered with 
the round dots. Next to the slabs engraved with the 
image of tigers v/as another, representing an ara militaris 
(a bird of the parrot specie, very large and of brilliant 
plumage of various colors). I took it for the totem of his 
wife, MOO, macaw ; and so it proved to be when later I 
was able to interpret their ideographic writings. 
Kinich-KaJcmo after her death obtained the honors of 
the apotheosis ; had temples raised to her memory, and 
was worshipped at Izamal up to the time of the Spanish 
conquest, according to Landa, Cogolludo and Lizana. 

Satisfied that I had found the tomb of a great warrior 
among the Mayas, I resolved to make an excavation, not- 
withstanding I had no tools or implements proper for 
such work. After two months of hard toil, after pene- 
trating through three level floors painted with yellow 
ochre, at last a large stone urn came in sight. It was 
opened in presence of Colonel D. Daniel Traconis. It 
contained a small heap of grayish dust over which lay 
the cover of a terra cotta pot, also painted yellow ; a few 
small ornaments of macre that crumbled to dust on being 
touched, and a large ball of jade, with a hole pierced in 
the middle. This ball had at one time been highly pol- 
ished, but for some cause or other the polish had 
disappeared from one side. Near, and lower than the 
urn, was discovered the head of the colossal statue, to- 
day the best, or one of the best pieces, in the National 
Museum of Mexico, having been carried thither on board 
of the gunboat Libertad, without my consent, and with- 
out any renumeration having even been offered by the 
Mexican government for my labor, my time and the 
money spent in the discovery. Close to the chest of the 
statue was another stone urn much larger than the first. 
On being uncovered it was found to contain a large quan- 



19 

tity of reddish substance and some jade ornaments. On 
closely examining this substance I pronounced it organic 
matter that had been subjected to a very great heat in an 
open vessel. (A chemical any lysis of some of it by Pro- 
fessor Thompson, of Worcester, Mass., at the request of 
Mr. Stephen Salisbury, Jr., confirmed my opinion). 
From the position of the urn I made up my mind that 
its contents were the heart and viscera of the personage 
represented by the statue ; while the dust found in the 
first urn must have been the residue of his brains. 

Landa tells us that it was the custom, even at the time 
of the Spanish conquest, when a person of eminence died 
to make images of stone, or terra cotta or wood in the 
semblance of the deceased, whose ashes were placed in a 
hollow made on the back of the head for the purpose. 
Feeling sorry for having thus disturbed the remains of 
Chaacmol, so carefully concealed by his friends and rel- 
atives many centuries ago ; in order to save them from 
further desecration, I burned the greater part reserving 
only a small quantity for future analysis. This finding 
of the heart and brains of that chieftain, afforded an ex- 
planation, if any was needed, of one of the scenes more 
artistically portrayed in the mural paintings of his funeral 
chamber. In this scene which is painted immediately 
over the entrance of the chamber, where is also a life-size 
representation of his corpse prepared for cremation, the 
dead- warrior is pictured stretched on the ground, his 
back resting on a large stone placed for the purpose of 
raising the body and keeping open the cut made across it, 
under the ribs, for the extraction of the heart and other 
parts it was customary to preserve. These are seen in 
the hands of his children. At the feet of the statue were 
found a number of beautiful arrowheads of flint and 
chalcedony ; also beads that formed part of his necklace. 
These, to-day petrified, seemed to have been originally of 
bone or ivory. They were wrought to figure shells of 
periwinkles. Surrounding the slab on which the figure 
rests was a large quantity of dried blood. This fact 



20 

might lead us to suppose that slaves were sacrificed at 
his funeral, as Herodotus tells us it was customary with 
the Scythians, and we know it was with the Romans and 
other nations of the old world, and the Incas in Peru. 
Yet not a bone or any other human remains were found 
in the mausoleum. 

The statue forms a single piece with the slab on which 
it reclines, as if about to rise on his elbows, the legs 
being drawn up so that the feet rest flat on the slab. I 
consider this attitude given to the statues of dead per- 
sonages that I have discovered in Chichen, where they 
are still, to be symbolical of their belief in reincarnation. 
They, in common with the Egyptians, the Hindoos, and 
other nations of antiquity, held that the spirit of man 
after being made to suffer for its shortcomings during its 
mundane life, would enjoy happiness for a time propor- 
tionate to its good deeds, then return to earth, animate 
the body and live again a material existence. The Mayas, 
however, destroying the body by fire, made statues in the 
semblance of the deceased, so that, being indestructible 
the spirit might find and animate them on its return to 
earth. The present aborigines have the same belief. 
Even to-day, they never fail to prepare the hanal pixan, 
the food for the spirits, which they place in secluded 
spots in the forests or fields, every year, in the month of 
November. These statues also hold an urn between their 
hands. This fact again recalls to the mind the Egpptian 
custom of placing an urn in the coffins with the mum- 
mies, to indicate that the spirit of the deceased had been 
judged and found righteous. 

The ornament hanging on the breast of Chaacmol's 
effigy, from a ribbon tied with a peculiar knot behind 
his neck, is simply a badge of his rank ; the same is seen 
on the breast of many other personages in the bas-reliefs 
and mural paintings. A similar mark of authority is 
yet in usage in Burmah. 

I have tarried so long on the description of my first 
important discovery because I desired to explain the 



21 

method followed by me in the investigation of these 
monuments, to show that the result of our labors are by 
no means the work of imagination — as some have been so 
kind a sTiort time ago as to intimate — but of careful and 
patient analysis and comparison ; also, in order, from the 
start, to call your attention to the similarity of certain 
customs in the funeral rites that the Mayas seem to have 
possessed in common with other nations of the old world : 
and lastly, because my friend. Dr. Jesus Sanchez, Profes- 
sor of Archaeology in the National Museum of Mexico, 
ignoring altogether the circumstances accompanying the 
discovery of the statue, has published in the Anales del 
Museo Nacional, a long dissertation — full of erudition, 
certainly— to prove that the statue discovered by me at 
Chichen-Itza, was a representation of the God of the 
natural production of the earth, and that the name 
given by me was altogether arbitrary; and ,also, because 
an article has appeared in the North American Revieio 
for October, 1880, signed by Mr. Charnay, in which the 
author, after re-producing Mr. Sanchez's writing, pro- 
nounces ex cathedra and de perse, but without assigning 
any reason for his opinion, that the statue is the effigy 
of the god of wine — the Mexican Bacchus — without tell- 
ing us which of them, for there were two. 

Having been obliged to abandon the statue in the 
forests — well wrapped in oilcloth, and sheltered under a 
hut of palm leaves, constructed by Mrs. Le Plongeon 
and myself — my men having been disarmed by order of 
General Palomino, then commander-in-chief of the fed- 
eral forces in Yucatan, in consequence of a revolution- 
ary movement against Dr. Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada 
and in favor of General Diaz — I went to Uxmal to con- 
tinue my researches among its ruined temples and 
palaces. There I took many photographs, surveyed the 
monuments, and, for the first time, found the remnants 
t)f the phallic worship of the Nahualts. Its symbols 
are not to be seen in Chichen — the city of the holy and 
learned men, Itzaes — but are frequently met with in the 



22 

northern parts of the peninsula, and all the regions 
where the Nahualt influence predominated. 

There can be no doubt that in very ancient times the 
same customs and religious worship existed in Uxmal 
and Chichen, since these two cities were founded by the 
same family, that of Can (serpent), whose name is writ- 
ten on all the monuments in both places. Can and the 
members of his family worshipped Deity under the 
symbol of the mastodon's head. At Chichen a tableau 
of said worship forms the orname/it of the building, des- 
ignated in the work of Stephens, "Travels in Yucatan," 
as Iglesia ; being, in fact, the north wing of the palace 
and museum. This is the reason why the mastodon's 
head forms so prominent a feature in all the ornaments 
of the edifices built by them. They also worshipped the 
sun and fire, which they represented by the same hie- 
roglyph used by the Egyptians for the sun ©. In this 
worship of the fire they resembled the Chaldeans and 
Hindoos, but differed from the Egyptians, who had no 
veneration for this element. They regarded it merely 
as an animal that devoured all things within its reach, 
and died with all it had swallowed, when replete and 
satisfied. 

From certain inscriptions and pictures — in which the 
Cans are represented crawling on all fours like dogs — 
sculptured on the facade of their house of worship, it 
would appear that their religion of the mastodon was re- 
placed by that of the reciprocal forces of nature, imported 
in the country by the big-nosed invaders, the Nahualts 
coming from the west. These destroyed Chichen, and es- 
tablished their capital at Uxmal. There they erected in 
all the courts of the palaces, and on the platforms of the 
temples the symbols of their religion, taking caie, how- 
ever, not to interfere with the worship of the sun and 
fire, that seems to have been the most popular. 

Bancroft in his work, ''The Natme Races of the 
Pacific States,'' Vol. IV., page 277, remarks : "That the 
" scarcity of idols among the Maya antiquities must be 



23 

" regarded as extraordinary. - That the people of Yuca- 
" tan were idolators there is no possible doubt, and in 
" connection with the magnificent shrines and temples 
" erected by them, and rivalling or excelling the grand 
" obelisks of Copan, might naturally be sought for, but 
"in view of the facts it must be concluded that the 
" Maya idols were very small, and that sucli as escaped 
" the fatal iconoclasms of the Spanish ecclesiastics were 
" buried by the natives as the only means of preventing 
' ' their desecration. ' ' 

That the people who inhabited the country at the 
time of the Spanish conquest had a multiplicity of gods 
there can be no doubt. The primitive form of worship, 
with time and by the effect of invasions from outside, 
had disappeared, and been replaced by that of their great 
men and women, who were deified and had temples raised 
to their memory, as we see, for example, in the case of 
Moo, wife and sister of Chaacmol, whose shrine was built 
on the high mound on the north side of the large square in 
the city of Izamal . There pilgrims flocked from all parts of 
the country to listen to the oracles delivered by the mouth 
of her priests ; and see the goddess come down from the 
clouds every day, at mid-day, under the form of a resplen- 
dent macaw, and light the fire that was to consume the 
offerings deposited on her altar ; even at the time of the 
conquest, according to the chroniclers, Chaacmol himself 
seems to have become the god of war, that always ap- 
peared in the midst of the battle, fighting on the side 
of his followers, surrounded with flames. Kukulcan, 
''the culture" hero of the Mayas, the winged serpent, 
worshipped by the Mexicans as the god Guetzalcoalt, 
and by the Quiches as Cucumatz, if not the father him- 
self of Chaacmol, Catst, at least one of his ancestors. 

The friends and followers of that prince may have 
worshipped him after his death, and the following gene- 
rations, seeing the representation of his totems (serpent) 
covered with feathers, on the walls of his palaces, and of 
the sanctuaries built by him to the deity, called him 



24: 

Kukulcan, the winged serpent : when, in fact, the artists 
who carved his emblems on the walls covered them with 
the cloaks he and all the men in authority and the high 
priests wore on ceremonial occasions — feathered vest- 
ments—as we learned from the study of mural paintings. 

In the temples and palaces of the ancient Mayas I have 
never seen anything that I could in truth take for idols. 
I have seen many symbols, such as double-headed 
tigers, corresponding to the double-headed lions of the 
Egyptians, emblems of the sun. I have seen the repre- 
sentation of people kneeling in a peculiar manner, with 
their right hand resting on the left shoulder— ^sign of 
respect among the Mayas as among the inhabitants of 
Egypt — in the act of worshiping the mastodon head; but 
I doubt if this can be said to be idol worship. Can 
and his family were probably monotheists. The masses 
of the people, however, may have placed the different 
natural phenomena under the direct supervision of 
special imaginary beings, prescribing to them the same 
duties that among the Catholics are prescribed, or rather 
attributed, to some of the saints ; and may have tributed 
to them the sort of worship of dulia^ tributed to the 
saints — even made images that they imagined to repre- 
sent such or such deity, as they do to-day ; but I have 
never found any. They worshiped the divine essence, 
and called it Kit. 

In course of* time this worship may have been replaced 
by idolatrous rites, introduced by the barbarous or half 
■ civilized tribes which invaded the country, and implanted 
among the inhabitants their religious belief, their idola- 
trous superstitions and form of worship with their sym- 
bols. The monuments of Uxmal afford ample evidence 
of that fact. 

My studies, however, have nothing to do with the 
history of the country posterior to the invasion of the 
Nahualts. These people appear to have destroyed the 
high form of civilization existing at the time of their ad- 
vent; and tampered with the ornaments of the buildings 



25 

in order to introduce the symbols of the reciprocal forces 
of nature. 

The language of the ancient Mayas, strange as it may 
appear, has survived all the vicissitudes of time, wars, 
and political and religious convulsions. It has, of course, 
somewha.t degenerated by the mingling of so many races 
in such a limited space as the peninsula of Yucatan is ; 
but it is yet the vernacular of the people. The Spaniards 
themselves, v^ho striyed so hard to wipe out all vestiges 
of the ancient customs of the aborigines, were unable to 
destroy it ; nay, they were obliged to learn it ; and now 
many of their descendants have forgotten the mother 
tongue of their sires, and speak Maya only. 

In some localities in Central America it is still spoken in 
its pristine purity, as, for example, by the Chaacmules, a 
tribe of bearded men, it is said, who live in the vicinity of 
the unexplored ruins of the ancient city of Tekal. It is a 
well-known fact that many tribes, as that of the Itzaes, 
retreating before the Nahualt invaders, after the surren- 
der and destruction of their cities, sought refuge in the 
islands of the lake Peten of to-day, and called it Peten- 
itza, the islands of the Itzaes; or in the well nigh inac- 
cessible valleys, defended by ranges of towering moun- 
tains. There they live to-day, preserving the customs, 
manners, language of their forefathers unaltered, in the 
tract of land known to us as Tierra de Guerra. No 
white man has ever penetrated their zealously guarded 
stronghold that lays between Guatemala, Tabasco, Chia- 
pas and Yucatan, the river Uzumasinta watering part 
of their territory. 

The Maya language seems to be one of the oldest 
tongues spoken by man, since it contains words and ex- 
pressions of alljOr nearly all, the known polished languages 
on earth. The name Maya, with the same signification 
everywhere it is met, is to be found scattered over the 
different countries of what we term the Old World, as in 
Central America. 

I beg to call your attention to the following facts. They 
may have no significance. They may be mere coinci- 



26 

dences, the strange freaks of hazard, of no possible value 
in the opinion of some among the learned men of our 
days. Just as the finding of English words and English 
customs, as now exist among the most remote nations 
and heterogeneous people and tribe^ of all races and 
colors, who do not even suspect the existence of one an- 
other, may be regarded by the learned philologists and 
ethonologists of two or three thousand years hence. These 
will, perhaps, also pretend that these coincidences are 
simply the curious workings of the human mind — the 
efforts of men endeavoring to express their thoughts in 
language, that being reduced to a certain number of 
sounds, must, of necessity produce, if not the same, at 
least very similar words to express the same idea — and 
that this similarity does not prove that those who in- 
vented them had, at any time, communication, unless, 
maybe, at the time of the building of the hypothetical 
Tower of Babel. Then all the inhabitants of earth are 
said to have bid each other a friendly good night, a certain 
evening, in a universal tongue, to find next morning that 
everybody had gone stark mad during the night : since 
each one, on meeting sixty-nine of his friends, was 
greeted by every one in a different and unknown manner, 
according to learned rabbins ; and that he could no more 
understand what they said, than tliey what he said 

It is very difficult without the help of the books of the 
learned priests of Mayab to know positively why they 
gave that name to the country known to-day as Yucatan. 
I can only surmise that they so called it from the great 
absorbant quality of its stony soil, which, in an incred- 
ibly short time, absorbs the water at the surface. This 
percolating through the pores of the stone is afterward 
found filtered clear and cool in the senotes and caves. 
Maydb, in the Maya language, means a tammy, a 
sieve. From the name of the country, no doubt, the 
Mayas took their name, as natural ; and that name is 
found, as that of the English to-day, all over the ancient 
civilized world. 



27 

When, on January 28, 1873, I had the honor of read- 
ing a paper before the New York American Greographi- 
cal Society — on the coincidences that exist between 
the momiments, customs, religious rites, etc. of the 
prehistoric inhabitants of America and those of Asia 
and Egypt — I pointed to the fact that sun circles, 
dolmen and tumuli, similar to the megalithic monu- 
ments of America, had been found to exist scattered 
through the islands of the Pacific to Hindostan ; over 
the plains of the peninsulas at the south of Asia, 
through the deserts of Arabia, to the northern parts of 
Africa ; and that not only these rough monuments of a 
primitive age, but those of a far more advanced ci,viliza- 
tion were also to be seen in these same countries. Allow 
me to repeat now what I then said regarding these strange 
facts : If we start from the American continent and travel 
towards the setting sun we may be able to trace the 
route followed by the mound builders to the plains of 
Asia and the valley of the Nile. The mounds scattered 
through the valley of the Mississippi seem to be the rude 
specimens of that kind of architecture. Then come the 
more highly finished teocalis of Yucatan and Mexico and 
Peru ; the pyramidal mounds of Maui, one of the Sand- 
wich Islands ; those existing in the Fejee and other islands 
of the Pacific ; which, in China, we find converted into 
the high, porcelain, gradated towers ; and these again con- 
verted into the more imposing temples of Cochin-China, 
Hindostan, Ceylon — so grand, so stupendous in their 
wealth of ornamentation that those of Chichen-Itza 
Uxmal, Palenque, admirable as they are, well nigh dwin- 
dle into insignificance, as far as labor and imagination are 
concerned, when compared with them. That they present 
the same fundamental conception in their architecture 
is evident — a platform rising over another platform, the 
one above being of lesser size than the one below ; the 
American monuments serving, as it were, as models 
for the more elaborate and perfect, showing the advance 
of art and knowledge. 



28 

The name Maya seems to have existed from the re- 
motest times in the meridional parts of Hindostan. Yal- 
miki, in his epic poem, the Ramayana, said to be written 
1500 before the Christian era, in which he recounts the 
wars and prowesses of Rama in the recovery of his lost 
wife, the beautiful Sita, speaking of the country inhab- 
ited by the Mayas, describes it as abounding in mines of 
silver and gold, with precious stones and lapiz lazuri : 
and bounded by the Yindhya mountains on one side, the 
Prastravana range on the other and the sea on the third. 
The emissaries of Rama having entered by mistake with- 
in the Mayas territories, learned thai: all foreigners were 
forbidden to penetrate into them ; and that those who 
were so imprudent as to violate this prohibition, even 
through ignorance, seldom escaped being put to death. 
(Strange to say, the same thing happens to-day to those 
who try to penetrate into tlie territories of the Santa 
Cruz Indians, or in the valleys occupied by the Lacan- 
dones, Itzaes and other tribes that inhabit La Tlerra de 
Guerra. The Yucatecans themselves do not like for- 
eigners to go, and less to settle, in their country — are 
consequently opposed to immigration. 

The emissaries of Rama, says the poet, met in the for- 
est a woman who told them : That in very remote ages a 
prince of the Davanas, a learned magician, possessed of 
great power, whose name was Maya^ established himself 
in the country, and that he was the architect of the prin- 
cipal of the Davanas : but having fallen in love with the 
nymph Hema^ married her ; whereby he roused the jeal- 
ousy of the god Pourandura, who attacked and killed 
him with a thunderbolt. Now, it is worthy of notice, 
that the word Hem signifies in the Maya language to c7'oss 
loith ropes ; or according to Brasseur, hidden mysteries. 

By a most rare coincidence we have the same identical 

story recorded in the mural paintings of Chaacmol's 

funeral chamber, and in the sculptures of Chichsen and 

Uxmal. There we find that Chaacmol, the husband of 

"Moo is killed by his brother Aac, who stabbed him three 



29 

times in the back with, his spear for jealousy. Aac was in 
love with his sister Moo, but she married his brother 
Chaacmol from choice, and because the law of the coun- 
try prescribed that the younger brother should marry 
his sister, making it a crime for the older brothers to 
marry her. 

In another part of the Ramayana, Maya is described as "^ 
a powerful Asoura, always thirsting for battles and full 
of arrogance and pride — an enemy to Bali, chief of one 
of the monkey tribes, by whom he was finally vanquished, j. 
The celebrated Indianist, Mr. H. T. Colebrooke, in a" 
memoir on the sacred books of .the Hindoos, published 
in Yol. yill of the "Asiatic Researches," says: "The 
SouryasiddJcdntu (the most ancient Indian treatise on as- 
tronomy), is not considered as written by Maya; but this 
personage is represented as receiving his science from a 
partial incarnation of the sun." 

Maya is also, according to the Rig-Yeda, the goddess, * 
by whom all things are created by her union with Brah- 
ma. She is the cosmic egg, the golden uterus, the Hiram- 
yagarbha. We see an image of it, represented floating 
amidst the water, in the sculptures that adorii the panel 
over the door of the east facade of the monument, called 
by me palace and museum at Chichen-Itza. Emile Bur- 
nouf, in his Sanscrit Dictionary, at the word Maya, says : 
Maya, an architect of the Datyas\ Maya {mas.), magician, 
prestidigitator; {fern.) illusion, prestige; Maya, the magic 
virtue of the gods, their power for producing all things ; 
also the feminine or producing energy of Brahma. ^ 

I will complete the list of these remarkable coincidences 
with a few others regarding customs exactly similar in 
both countries. One of these consists in carrying chil-^ 
dren astride on the hip in Yucatan as in India. In ^ 
Yucatan this custom is accompanied by a very interest- 
ing ceremony called Tietzmec. It is as follows : When a 
child reaches the age of four months an invitation is sent 
to the friends and members of the family of the parents 
to assemble at their house. Then in presence of all as- 



30 

sembled the legs of the child are opened, and he is placed 
astride the hip of the nailaJi or Jietzmec godmother ; 
she in turn encircling the little one with her arm, sup- 
ports him in that position whilst she walks five times 
round the house. During the time she is occupied in that 
walk live eggs are placed in hot ashes, so that they may- 
burst and the five senses of the child be opened. By the 
manner in which they burst and the time they require 
for bursting, they pretend to know if he will be intelli- 
gent or not. During the ceremony they place in his tiny 
hands the implement pertaining to the industry he is ex- 
pected to practice. The nailah is henceforth considered 
as a second mother to the child ; who, when able to under- 
stand, is made to respect her : and she is expected, in case 
of the mother's death, to adopt and take care of the child 
as if he were her own. 

Now, I will call your attention to another strange and 
most remarkable custom that was common to the inhabi- 
tants of Maydb^ some tribes of the aborigines of North 
America, and several of those that dwell in Hindostan, 
and piactice it even today. I refer to the printing of the 
human hand, dipped in a red colored liquid, on the walls 
of certain sacred edifices. Could not this custom, exist- 
ing amongst nations so far apart, unknown to each other, 
and for apparently the same purposes, be considered as a 
link in the chain of evidence tending to prove that very 
intimate relations and communications have existed 
anciently between their ancestors ? Might it not help the 
ethnologists to follow the migrations of the human race 
from this western continent to the eastern and southern 
shores of Asia, across the wastes of the Pacific Ocean ? I 
am told by unimpeachable witnesses that they have seen 
the red or bloody hand in more than one of the temples 
of the South Sea islanders ; and his Excellency Fred. P. 
Barlee, Esq. , the actual governor of British Honduras, 
has assured me that he has examined this seemingly in- 
delible imprint of the red hand on some rocks in cares in 
Australia. There is scarcely a monument in Yucatan 



31 

that does not preserve the imprint of the open upraised 
hand, dipped in red paint of some sort, perfectly visible 
on its walls. I lately took tracings of two of these im- 
prints that exist in the back saloon of the main hall, in 
tlie governor's house at Uxmal, in order to calculate the 
height of the personage who thus attested to those of his 
race, as I learned from one of my Indian friends, who 
passes for a wizard, that the building was in nad, my 
house. I may well say that the archway of the palace 
of the priests, toward the court, was nearly covered with 
them. Yet I am not aware that such symbol was ever 
used by the inhabitants of the countries bordering on the 
shores of the Mediterranean or by the Assyrians, or that 
it ever was discovered among the ruined temples or pal- 
aces of Egypt. 

The meaning of the red hand used by the aborigines of 
some parts of America has been, it is well known, a sub- 
ject of discussion for learned men and scientific societies. 
Its uses as a symbol remained for a long time a matter 
of conjecture. It seems that Mr. Schoolcraft had truly 
arrived at the knowledge of its veritable meaning. Ef- 
fectively, in the 2d column of the 5th page of the JVew 
Yorlc Herald for April 12, 1879, in the account of the 
visit paid by Gen. Grant to Ram Singh, Maharajah of 
Jeypoor, we read the description of an excursion to the 
town of Amber. Speaking of the journey to the Tiome of 
an Indian Icing, among other things the writer says : — 
" We passed small temples, some of them ruined, some 
" others with offerings of grains, or fruits, or flowers, 
" some with priests and people at worship. On the walls 
" of some of the temples we saw the marks of the human 
"hand as though it had been steeped in blood and pres- 
" sed against the white wall. We were told that it was 
"the custom, when seeking from the gods somebenison 
" to note the vow by putting the hand into a liquid and 
" printing it on the wall. This was to remind the gods 
"of the vow and prayer. And if it came to pass in the 
" shape of rain, or food, or health, or children, the joy- 



32 

" ous devotee returned to the temple and made other 
"offerings." In Yucatan it seems to have had the same 
meaning. That is to say : that the owners of the house if 
private, or the priests, in the temples and public buildings, 
called upon the edifices at the time of taking possession 
and using them for the first time, the blessing of the Deity; 
and placed the hand' s imprints on the walls to recall the 
vows and prayer : and also, as the interpretation com- 
municated to me by the Indians seems to suggest, as a 
signet or mark of property — in nad, my house. 

I need not speak of the similarity of many religious 
rites and beliefs existing in Hindostan and among the 
inhabitants of Mayab. The worship of the fire, of the 
phallus, of Deity under the symbol of the mastodon's 
head, recalling that of Ganeza, the god with an ele- 
phant's head, hence that of the elephant in Siam, 
Birmah and other places of the Asiatic peninsula even 
in our day ; and various other coincidences so numerous 
and remarkable that many would not regard them as 
simple coincidences. What to think, effectively, of the 
types of the personages whose portraits are carved on 
the obelisks of Copan ? Were they in Siam instead of 
Honduras, who would doubt but they are Siameeses. 
What to say of the figures of men and women sculptured 
on the walls of the stupendous temples hewn, from the 
live rock, at Elephanta, so American is their appearance 
and features? Who would not take them to be pure 
aborigines if they were seen in Yucatan instead of 
j_ Madras, Elephanta and other places of India. 

If now we abandon that country and, crossing the 
Himalaya's range enter Afghanistan, there again we 
find ourselves in a country Inhabited by Maya tribes; 
whose names, 9,s those of many of their cities, are of pure 
American-Maya origin. In ttie fourth column of the 
sixth page of the London Times, weekly edition, of 
March 4, 1879, we read: "4,000 or 5,000 assembled on 
" the opposite bank of the river Kabul, and it ap];)ears 
" that in that day or evening they attacked the Maya 
" villages situated on the north side of the river." / 



33 

He, the correspondent of the Times, tells'us that Maya 
tribes form still part of the population of Afghanistan. 
He also tells ns that Kabul is the name of the river, on 
the banks of which their villages are situated. But Kabul 
is the name of an antique shrine in the city of Izamal. 
Cogolludo, in the lib. IV., cap. VIII. of his History 
of Yucatan, says : " The^^had another temple on another 
" mound, on the west side of the square, also dedicated 
" to the same idol. They had there the symbol of a 
"hand, as souvenir. To tliat temple they carried their 
" dead and the sick. They called it Kabul, the working 
" hand, and made there great offerings." Father Lizana 
says the same : so we have two witnesses to the fact. 
Kab, in Maya means hand ; and Bui is to play at hazard. 

Many of the names of places and towns of Afghanis- 
tan have not only a meaning in the American-Maya 
language, but are actually the same as those of places 
and villages in Yucatan to-day, for example : 

The Valley of Clienar would be the valley of the 
well of the loomaii] s children — chen, well, and al, the 
woman' s children. The fertile valley of Kunar would be 
the valley of the god of the ears of corn; or, more pro- 
bably, the nest of the ears of corn : as Ku, pronounced 
short, means God, and Kuu, pronounced long, is nest, 
Nal, is the ears of corn. 

The correspondent of the London Times, in his letters, 
mentions the names of some of the principal tribes, such 
as the KuJci-Khel, the Akalchel, the Khambhur Khel, 
etc. The suffix Khel simply signifies tribe, or clan. So 
similar to the Maya vocable Kaan, a tie, a rope ; hence a 
clan : a number of people held together by the tie of 
parentage. Now, Kuki would be Kukil, or Kukum 
maya for feather, hence the Kuki-Khel would be the 
tribe of the feather. 

Aka-Khel in the same manner would be the tribe of 
the reservoir, or pond. Akal is the Maya name for the 
artificial reservoirs, or ponds in which the ancient inhabi- 
tants of Mayab collected rain water for the time of 
drought. 



34 

Similarly the Khambhtje Khel is the tribe of the 
'pleasant : Kambul in Maya. It is the name of several 
villages of Yucatan, as you may satisfy yourself by ex- 
amining the map. 

We have also the Zaka-Khel, the tribe of the locust, 
ZAK. It is useless to quote more for the present: enough 
to say that if you read the names of the cities, valleys 
clans, roads even of Afghanistan to any of the abori- 
gines of Yucatan, they will immediately give you their 
meaning in their own language. Before leaving the 
country of the Afghans, by the Khiber Pass — that is to 
say, the road of the Tiauok ; Hi, TiawJc, and bel, road — 
allow me to inform you that in examining their types, as 
published in the London illustrated papers, and in 
Harper' s Weekly, I easily recognized the same cast of 
features as those of the bearded men, whose portraits we 
discovered in the bas-reliefs which adorn the antse and 
pillars of the castle, and queen's box in the Tennis 
Court at Chichen-Itza. 

/^ On our way to the coast of Asia Minor, and hence to 
Egypt, we may, in following the Mayas' footsteps, no- 
tice that a tribe of them, 'the learned Magi, with their 
Rabmag at their head, established themselves in Babylon, 
where they became, indeed, a powerful and influential 
body. Their chief they called ^a6-??i«p' — or Lab- mac — 
the old person — lab, old — mac, person ; and their name 
Magi, meant learned men, magicians, as that of Maya in 
India. I will directly speak more at length of vestiges 
of the Mayas in Babylon, when explaining by means of 
the American Maya, the meaning and probable etymol- 
ogy of the names of the Chaldaic divinities. At present 
I am trying to follow the footprints of the Mayas. 

On the coast of Asia Minor we find a people of a roving 
and piratical disposition, whose name was, from the re- 
motest antiquity and for many centuries, the terror of 
the populations dwelling on the shores of the Mediterra- 
nean ; whose origin was, and is yet unknown ; who must 
have spoken Maya, or some Maya dialect, since we find 



35 

words of that language, and witli the same meaning in 
serted in that of the Greeks, who, Herodotus tells us, used 
to laugh at the manner the Oarians, or Car as, oxOaribs^ 
spoke their tongue ; whose women wore a white linen 
dress that required no fastening, just as the Indian and 
Mestiza women of Yucatan even to-day 

To tell you that the name of the Caeas is found over a 
vast extension of country in America, would be to repeat 
what the late and lamented Brasseur de Bourbourg has 
shown in his most learned introduction to the work of 
Landa, " Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan ;" but this I 
may say, that the description of the customs and mode 
of life of the people of Yucatan, even at the time of the 
conquest, as written by Landa, seems to be a mere verba- 
tim plagiarism of the description of the customs and 
mode of life of the Carians of Asia Minor by Herodotus. 

If identical customs and manners, and the worship of 
the same divinities under the same name, besides the 
traditions of a people pointing towards a certain point of 
the globe as being the birth-place of their ancestors, 
prove anything, then I niust say that in Egypt also we 
meet with the tracks of the Mayas, of whose name we 
again have a reminiscence in that of the goddess Maia, the 
daughter of Atlantis, worshiped in Greece. Here, at this 
end of the voyage, we seem to find an intimation as to the 
place where the Mayas originated. We are told that 
Maya is born from Atlantis ; in other words, that the 
Mayas came from beyond the Atlantic waters. Here, 
also, we find that Maia is called the mother of the gods 
Kubeles. Ku, Maya God, Bel the road, the way. Ku-bel, 
the road, the origin of the gods as among the Hindos- 
tanees. These, we have seen in the Rig Yeda, called 
Maya, the feminine energy — the productive virtue of 
Brahma. 

I do not pretend to present here anything but facts, 
resulting from my study of the ancient monuments of 
Yucatan, and a comparative study of the Maya language, 
in which the ancient inscriptions, I have been able to de- 



36 

cipher, are written. Let us see if those facts are sus- 
tained by others of a different character, 

I will make a brief parallel between the architectural 
monuments of the primitive Chaldeans, their mode of 
writing, their burial places, and give you the etymology 
of the names of their divinities in the American Maya 
language. 

The origin of the primitive Chaldees is yet an un- 
settled matter among learned men. Some professing one 
opinion, others another. All agree, however, that they 
were strangers to the lower Mesopotamian valleys, where 
they settled in very remote ages, their capital being, in 
the time of Abraham, as we learn from Scriptures, TJr or 
Hur. So named either because its inhabitants were 
worshipers of the moon, or from the moon itself— u in 
the Maya language — or perhaps also because the found- 
ers being strangers and guests, as it were, in the country, 
it was called the city of guests. Hula (Maya), guest just 
arrived. 

Recent researches in the plains of lower Mesopotamia 
have revealed to us their mode of building their sacred 
edifices, which is precisely identical to that of the Mayas. 

It consisted of mounds composed of superposed plat- 
forms, either square or oblong, forming cones or pyra- 
mids, their angles at times, their faces at others, facing 
exactly the cardinal points. 

Their manner of construction was also the same, with 
the exception of the materials employed — each people 
using those most at hand in their respective countries — 
clay and bricks in Chaldea, stones in Yucatan. The fill- 
ing in of the buildings being of inferior materials, crude 
or sun-dried bricks at Warka and Mugheir ; of unhewn 
stones of all shapes and sizes, in Uxmal and Chichen, 
faced with walls of hewn stones, many feet in thickness 
throughout. Grand exterior staircases lead to the sum- 
mit, where was the shrine of the god, and temple. 

In Yucatan these mounds are generally composed of 
seven superposed platforms, the one above being smaller 



37 

than that immediately below ; the temple or sanctuary 
containing invariably two chambers, the inner one, the 
Sanctum Sanctorum, being the smallest. 

In Babylon, the supposed tower of Babel — the Birs-i- 
nimrud — the temple of the seven lights, was made of 
seven stages or platforms. 

The roofs of these buildings in both countries were fiat ; 
the walls of vast thickness ; the chambers long and narrow, 
with outer doors opening into them directly ; the rooms 
ordinarily let into one another : squared recesses were 
common in the rooms. Mr. Lof tus is of opinion that the 
chambers of the Chaldean buildings were usually arched 
with bricks, in which opinion Mr. Taylor concurs. We 
know that the ceilings of the chambers in all the monu- 
ments of Yucatan, without exception, form triangular 
arches. To describe their construction I will quote from 
the description by Herodotus, of some ceilings in Egyptian 
buildings and Scythian tombs, that resemble that of the 
brick vaults found at Mugheir. "The side walls slope 
" outward as they ascend, the arch is formed by each suc- 
" cessive layer of brick from the pointj where the arch 
"begins, a little overlapping the last, till the two sides 
" of the roof are brought so near together, that the aper- 
" ture may be closed by a single brick." 

Some of the sepulchers found in Yucatan are very 
similar to the jar tombs common at Mugheir. These con- 
sist of two large open-mouthed jars, united with bitumen 
after the body has been deposited in them, with the usual 
accompaniments of dishes, vases and ornaments, having 
an air hole bored at one extremity. Those found at Pro- 
greso were stone urns about three feet square, cemented 
in pairs, mouth to mouth, and having also an air hole 
bored in the bottom. Extensive mounds, made artifi- 
cially of a vast number of coffins, arranged side by side, 
divided by thin walls of masonry crossing each other at 
right angles, to separate the coffins, have been found in 
the lower plains of Chaldea — such as exist along the 
coast of Peru, and in Yucatan. At Izamal many human 



38 

remains, contained in urns, have been found in the 
mounds. 

"The ordinary dress of the common people among the 
Chaldeans," says Canon Rawlison, in his work, the 
Five Great Monarchies, "seems to have consisted of a 
single garment, a short tunic tied round the waist, and 
reaching thence to the knees. To this may sometimes 
have been added an abba, or cloak, thrown over the 
shoulders ;- the material of the former we may perhaps 
presume to have been linen." The mural paintings at 
Chichen show that the Mayas sometimes used the same 
costume ; and that dress is used to-day by the abori- 
gines of Yucatan, and the inhabitants of the Tlerra de 
Querra. They were also bare-footed, and wore on the head 
a band of cloth, highly ornamented with mother-of-pearl 
instead of camel's hair, as the Chaldee. This band is to 
be seen in bas-relief at Chichen-Itza, inthe mural paint- 
ings, and on the head of the statue of Chaacmol. The 
higher classes wore a long robe extending from the neck 
to the feet, sometimes adorned with a fringe; it appears not 
to have been fastened to the waist, but kept in place by 
passing over one shoulder, a slit or hole being made for 
the arm on one side of the dress only. In some cases the 
upper part of the dress seems to have been detached from 
the lower, and to form a sort of jacket which reached 
about to the hips. We again see this identical dress 
portrayed in the mural paintings. The same descrip- 
tion of ornaments were affected by the Chaldees and the 
Mayas — bracelets, earrings, armlets, anklets, made of 
the materials they could procure. 

The Mayas at times, as can be seen from the slab dis- 
covered by Bresseur in Mayapan (an exact fac-simile of 
which cast, from a mould made by myself, is now in the 
rooms of the American Antiquarian Society at Worces- 
ter, Mass.), as the primitive Chaldee, in their writings, 
made use of characters composed of straight lines only, 
inclosed in square or oblong figures; as we see from the in- 
scriptions in what has been called hieratic form of writing 



39 

found at Warka and Mugheir and the slab from Mayapan 
and others. 

The Chaldees are said to have made use of three kinds 
of characters that Canon Rawlinson calls letters proper^ 
monograms and determinative. The Maya also, as we 
see from, the monumental inscriptions, employed three 
kinds of characters— Zei^^er 5 proper., monograms and^^zc- 
torial. 

It may be said of the religion of the Mayas, as I have 
had occasion to remark, what the learned author of the 
Five Grreat Monarchies says of that of the jprimitive Chal- 
dees : ' ' The religion of the Chaldeans, from the very 
earliest times to which the monuments carry us back, 
was, in its outward aspect, a polytheism of a very elabo- 
rate character. It is quite possible that there may have 
been esoteric explanations, known to the priests and the 
more learned ; which, resolving the personages of the 
Pantheon into the powers of nature, reconcile the appa- 
rent multiplicity of Gods with monotheism." I will now 
consider the names of the Chaldean deities in their turn of 
rotation as given us by the author above mentioned, and 
show you that the language of the American Mayas gives 
us an etymology of the whole of them, quite in accord- 
ance with their particular attributes. 

RA. 

The learned author places Ra at the head of the 
Pantheon, stating that the meaning of the word is simply 
God, or the God emphatically. We know that Ra was 
the Sun among the Egyptians, and that the hieroglyxjh, 
a circle, representation of that God was the same in 
Babylon as in Egypt. It formed an element in the 
native name of Babylon. Which was Jca-ra. 

Now the Mayas called la, that which has existed for 
ever, the truth par excellence. As to the native name of 
Babylon it would simply be the city of the infinite truth 
— cah, city; la, eternal truth. 



40 



ANA OE DIS. 



Ana, like Ra, is thouglit to have signified God in the 
highest sense. Its etymology seems to be problematic. 
His epithets mark priority and antiquity; the original 
chief\ the father of the gods, the lord of darlcness or 
death. The Maya gives us a, thy; ]srA, mother. At times 
he was called Dis, and was the patron god of Brech, the 
great city of the dead, the necropolis of Lower Babylonia. 
Tix, Maya is a cavity formed in the earth. It seems to 
have given its name to the city of Niffer, called Calneh 
in the translation of the Septuagint, from Teal-ana, which 
is translated the "fort of Ana;" or according to the 
Maya, the prison of Ana, kal being prison, or the prison 
of thy mother. 

ANATA 

the supposed wife of Ana, has no peculiar character- 
istics. Her name is only, says our author, the feminine 
form of the masculine. Ana. But the Maya designates 
her as the companion of Ana; ta, with; Anata with Ana. 

BiL OE Eisru 

seems to mean merely Lord. It is usually followed by 
a qualificative adjunct, possessing great interest, Nipetj. 
To that name, which recalls that of Nebeoth or JSfimrod, 
the author gives a Syriac etymology ; napar (make to 
flee). His epithets are the supreme, the father of the 
gods, the procreator. 

The Maya gives us Bil, or Bel ; the way, the road ; 
hence the origin, the father, the procreator. Also en a, 
who is before ; again the father, the procreator. 

As to the qualificative adjunct nipru. It would seem 
to be the Maya niblu ; nib, to thank ; lu, the Bagre, a 
silurus fish. Niblu would then be the thanlcsgimng 
fish. Strange to say, the high priest at. Uxmal and 
Chichen, elder brother of Chaacmol, first son of Oan, the 
founder of those cities, is Cay, the fish, whose %f^gj is my 
last discovery in June, among the ruins of Uxmal. The 



41 

bust is contained within the jaws of a serpent, Gan^ 
and over it, is a beautiful mastodon head, with the trunk 
inscribed with Egyptian characters, which read tzaa, 
that which is necessary. 

BELTIS 

is the wife of Bel-nipru. But she is more than his 
mere female power. She is a separate and important 
deity. Her common title is the Great Goddess. In 
Chaldea her name was Mulita or Enuta, both words 
signifying the lady. Her favorite title was the mother of 
tJie gods, the origin of the gods. 

In Maya belIs the road, the way ; and te means Tiere. 
Belte or Beltis would be I am the way, the origin. 

Mulita would correspond to mul-te, many here, many 
in me. I am the mother of many. Her other name 
Enuta seems to be (Maya) Ena-te, signifies ena, the 
first, before anybody, and te here. Eistate, I am here 
before anybody, I am the mother of the Gods. 

HE A OR HOA. 

The God Fish, the mystic animal, half man, half fish, 
which came up from the Persian gulf to teach astronomy 
and letters to the first settlers on the Euphrates and 
Tigris. 

According to Berosus the civilization was brought to 
Mesopotamia by Oannes and six other beings, who, like 
himself, were half man, half fish, and that they came 
from the Indian Ocean. We have already seen that the 
Mayas of India were not only architects, but also 
astronomers ; and the symbolic figure of a being half 
man and half fish seems to clearly indicate that those who 
brought civilization to the shores of the Euphrates and 
Tigris came in boats. 

Hoa-Ana, or Oannes, according to the Maya would 
mean, he who has bis residence or house on the water. 
Ha, being water ; a, thy ; nd, house ; literally, water 
thy house. Canon Rawlison remarks in that connection : 



42 

" There are very strong grounds for connecting he a. or 
" Hoa, with the serpent of the Scripture, and the para- 
" disaical traditions of the tree of knowledge and the tree 
" of life." As the title of the god of knowledge and sci- 
ence, Oannes, is the lord of the abyss, or of the great 
deep, the intelligent lish, one of his emblems being the 
serpent, Can, which occupies so conspicuous a place 
among the symbols of the gods on the black stones re- 
cording benefactions. 

DAV-KIISTA 

Is the wife of Hoa, and her name is thought to signify 
the chief lady. But the Maya again gives us another 
meaning that seems to me more appropriate. Tab-kin 
would be the rays of the sun : the rays of the light 
brought with civilization by her husband to benighted 
inhabitants of Mesopotamia. 

SIN OR HURKI 

is the name of the moon deity ; the etymology of it is 
quite uncertain. Its titles, as Rawlison remarks, are 
somewhat vague. Yet it is particularly designa'ted as 
^'■the 'bright, the shining,'''^ the lord of the month. 

Zin in Maya has also many significations. Zin is to 
stretch, to extend. Zinil is the extension of the whole 
of the universe. HurM would be the Maya Hulkin — 
sun-stroked ; he who receives directly the rays of the sun. 
Hurki is also the god presiding over buildings and 
architecture ; in this connection he is called Bel-Zuna. 
The lord of building, the supporting architect, the 
strengthener of fortifications. Bel-Zuna would also 
signify the lord of the strong house. Zuu, Maya, close, 
thick. Na, house : and the city where he had his great 
temi)le was Ur ; named after him. U, in Maya, signi- 
fies moon. 

SAN OR SANSI, 

the Sun God, the lord of fire, the ruler of the day. He 
who illumines the expanse of heaven and earth. 



43 

Zamal (Maya) is the morning, the dawn of the day, 
and his symbols are the same on the temples of Yucatan 
as on those of Chaldea, India and Egypt. 

VUL OE IVA, 

the prince, of the powers of the air, the lord of the 
whirlwind and the tempest, the wielder of the thunder- 
bolt, the lord of the air, he who makes the tempest 
to rage. Hiba in Maya is to rub, to scour, to chafe as 
does the tempest. As Vul he is represented with a flam- 
ing sword in his hand. Hul (Maya) an arrow. He is then 
the god of the atmosphere, who gives rain, 

ISHTAE OR KANA, 

the Chaldean Yenus, of the etymology of whose name 
no satisfactory account can be given, says the learned 
author, whose list I am following and description 
quoting. 

The Maya language, however, afl'ords a very natural 
etymology. Her name seems composed of ix, the femi- 
nine article, she ; and of tac, or tal, a verb that signifies to 
have a desire to satisfy a corporal want or inclination. 
IxTAL would, therefore, be she who desires to satisfy a 
corporal inclination. As to her other name, Nana, it 
simply means the great mother, the very mother. If 
from the names of god and goddesses, we pass to that of 
places, we will find that the Maya language also furnishes 
a perfect etymology for them. 

In the account of the creation of the world, according to 
the Chaldeans, we find that a woman whose name in Chal- 
dee is Thalatth, was said to have ruled over the monstrous 
animals of strange forms, that were generated and existed 
in darkness and water. The Greek called her Thalassa 
(the sea). But the Maya vocable Thallac, signifies a 
thing without steadiness, like the sea. 

UEUKH. 

The first king of the Chaldees was a great architect. 
To him are ascribed the most archaic monuments of the 



44 

plains of Lower Mesopotamia, He is said to have con- 
ceived the plans of the Babylonian Temple. He con- 
structed his edifices of mud and bricks, with rectan- 
gular bases, their angles fronting the cardinal points ; 
receding stages, exterior staircases, with shrines crown- 
ing the whole structure. In this description of the primi- 
tive constructions of the Chaldeans, no one can fail to 
recognize the Maya mode of building, and we see them 
not only in Yucatan, but throughout Central America, 
Peru, even Hindoostan. The very name Urhuli seems 
composed of two Maya words Huk, to make everything, 
and LuK, mud ; he who makes everything of mud ; so 
significative of his building propensities and of the mate- 
rials used by him. 

ASSYRIA. 

The etymology of the name of that country, as well as 
that of Asshur, the supreme god of the Assyrians, who 
never pronounced his name without adding ' ' Asshur is 
my lord," is still an undecided matter amongst the 
learned philologists of our days. Some contend that the 
country was named after the god Asshur ; others that 
the god Asshur received his name from the place where 
he was worshiped. None agree, however, as to the 
significative meaning of the name Asshur. In Assyrian 
and Hebrew languages the name of the country and 
people is derived from that of the god. That Asshur 
was the name of the deity, and that the country was 
named after it, I have no doubt, since I find its etymol- 
ogy, so much sought for by philologists, in the Ameri- 
can Maya language. Effectively the word assJiur, some- 
times written ashur, would be axtjl in Maya. 

A, in that language, placed before a noun, is the 
possessive pronoun, as the second person, thy or thine, 
and xul, means end, termination. It is also the name of 
the sixth month of the Maya calendar. Axul would 
therefore be tJiy end. Among all the nations which 
have recognized the existence of a Sijpeeme Being, 
Deity has been considered as the beginning and end of 
all things, to which all aspire to be united. 



45 

A strange coincidence that may be without signifi-* 
cance, but is not out of place to mention here, is the fact 
that the early kings of Chaldea are represented on the 
monuments as sovereigns over the Kiprat-arhat, or 
FOCIR KACEs. While tradition tells us that the great 
lord of the universe, king of the giants, whose capital 
was Tia7iuanaGo,i^Q magnificent ruins of which are still to 
be seen on the shores of the lake of Titicaca, reigned over 
Ttahuatyn-suyu, the four provinces. In the Oliou- 
King we read that in very remote times China was called 
by its inhabitants Sse-yo, the four parts of the em- 
pire. The Manama- DJiarma-Sasfr a, the Jiamayana, 
and other sacred books of Hindostan also inform us that 
the ancient Hindoos designated their country as the 
FOUR MOUNTAINS, and from some of the monumental 
inscriptions at Uxmal it would seem that, among other 
names, that place was called the land of the cancTii, or 
FOUR MOUTHS, that recalls vividly the name of Chaldea 
Arba-Lisun, the four tongues. 

That the language of the Mayas was Known in Chaldea 
in remote ages, but became lost in the course of time, is 
evident from the Book of Daniel. It seems that some of 
the learned men of Judea understood it still at the be- 
ginning of the Christian era, as many to-day understand 
Greek, Latin, Sanscrit, &c. ; since, we are informed by 
the writers of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, 
that the last words of Jesus of Nazareth expiring on the 
cross were uttered in it. 

In the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel, we read that 
the fingers of the hand of a man were seen writing on the 
wall of the hall, where King Belshazzar was banqueting, 
the words "Mene, mene, Tekel, upharsin," which could 
not be read by any of the wise men summoned by order of 
the king. Daniel, however, being brought in, is said to 
have given as their interpretation : Numhered^ number- 
ed, weighed, divid/ing, perhaps with the help of the 
angel Gabriel, who is said by learned rabbins to be the 
only individual of the angelic hosts who can speak Chal- 



46 

dean and Syriac, and had once before assisted him in in- 
terpreting the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar. Pei-haps 
also, having been taught the learning of the Chaldeans, 
he had studied the ancient Chaldee language, and was 
thus enabled to read the fatidical words, which have the 
very same meaning in the Maya language as he gave 
them. Effectively, mene or mane, numbered, would 
seem to correspond to the Maya verbs, main", to buy, to 
purchase, hence to number, things being sold by the 
quantity — or maistel, to pass, to exceed. Telcel, 
weighed, would correspond to tec, light. To-day it 
is used in the sense of lightness in motion, brevity, 
nimbleness : and UpTiarsin, dividing, seem allied to the 
words PPA, to divide two things united ; or uppah, to 
break, making a sharp sound ; or paah, to break edi- 
fices ; or, again, paaltal, to break, to scatter the inhabi- 
tants of a place. 

As to the last words of Jesus of Nazareth, when expir- 
ing on the cross, as reported by the Evangelists, Eli, Eli, 
according to St. Matthew, and Eloi, Eloi, according to 
St. Mark, lama sdbaclithani, they are pure Maya 
vocables ; but have a very different meaning to that at- 
tributed to them, and more in accordance with His 
character. By placing in the mouth of the dying martyr 
these words : My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
me ? they have done him an injustice, presenting him in 
his last moments despairing and cowardly, traits so 
foreign to his life, to his teachings, to the resignation 
shown by him during his trial, and to the fortitude dis- 
played • by him in his last journey to Calvary ; more 
than all, so unbecoming, not to say absurd, being in 
glaring contradiction to his role as Gfod. If God him- 
self, why complain that God has forsaken him? He 
evidently did not speak Hebrew in dying, since his two 
mentioned biographers inform us that the people around 
him did not understand what he said, and supposed he 
was calling Elias to help him : This man calleth for 
Elias. 



47 

His bosom friend, who never abandoned him — who 
stood to the last at the foot of the cross, with his mother 
and other friends and relatives, do not report such un- 
befitting words as having been uttered by Jesus. He 
simply says, that after recommending his mother to his 
care^he complained of being thirsty, and that, as the 
sponge saturated with vinegar was applied to his mouth, 
he merely said : It is fii^ished ! and Tie 'bowed Ms head 
and, ga^e up the ghost. (St. John, chap, xix., v. 30.) ' 

Well, this is exactly the meaning of the Maya words, 
Held, Helo, lamah zabac ta ni, literally : Held, Helo, 
now, now ; lamah, sinking ; zabac, black ink ; ta, over; 
isri, nose ; in our language : Wow., now I am sinking ; 
darJcness covers my face ! ISTo weakness, no despair — He 
merely tells his friends all is over. It is finished ! and 
expires. 

Before leaving Asia Minor, in order to seek in 
Egypt the vestiges of the Mayas, I will mention the 
fact that the names of some of the natives who in- 
habited of old that part of the Asiatic continent, and 
many of those of places and cities seem to be of 
American Maya origin. The Promised Land, for ex- 
ample — that part of the coast of Phoenicia so famous for 
the fertilitj^ of its soil, where the Hebrews, after journey- 
ing during forty years in the desert, arrived at last, tired 
and exhausted from so many hard-fought battles — was v, 
known as Canaan. This is a Maya word that means to 
be tired, to be fatigued ; and, if it is spelled Kanaan, it 
then signifies abundance ; both significations applying 
well to the country. 

Tyee, the great emporium of the Phoenicians, called 
Tzur, probably on account of being built on a rock, 
may also derive its name from the Maya Tzuc, a promon- 
tory, or a number of villages, Tzucub being a province. 

Again, we have the people called Khati by the 
Egyptians. They formed a great nation that inhabited 
the OcBle-Syria and the valley of the Orontes, where they 
have left very interesting proofs of their passage on 



48 

earth, in large and populous cities whose ruins have been 
lately discovered; Their origin is unknown, and is 
yet a problem to be solved. They are celebrated on ac- 
count of their wars against the Assyrians and Egyptians, 
who call them the plague of Khati. Their name is fre- 
quently mentioned in the Scriptures as Hittites. Placed 
on the road, between the Assyrians and the Egyptians, 
by whoni they were at last vanquished, they placed well 
nigh insuperable obstacles in the way of the conquests of 
these two powerful nations, which found in them ten- 
acious and fearful adversaries. The Khati had not only 
made considerable improvements in all military arts, but 
were also great and famed merchants ; their emporium 
CarchemisTi had no less importance than Tyre or Carthage. 
There, met merchants from all parts of the world; 
who brought thither the products and manufactures of 
their respective countries, and were wont to worship at 
the Sacred City, Katisli of the Khati. The etymology 
of their name is also unknown. Some historians having 
pretended that they were a Scythian tribe, derived it from 
Scythia ; but I think that we may find it very natural, as 
that of their principal cities, in the Maya language. 

All admit that the Khati, until the time when they 
were vanquished by Rameses the Grreat, as recorded on 
the walls of his palace at Thebes, the Memnonium, 
always placed obstacles on the way of the Egyptians and 
opposed them. According to the Maya, their name is 
significative of these facts, since Kat or Katah is a verb 
that means to place impediments on the road, to come 
forth and obstruct the passage. 

Carehemish was their great emporium, where mer- 
chants from afar congregated ; it was consequently a 
city of merchants. Cah means a city, and Cliemul is 
navigator. CarcliemisTi would then be cah-c7iemul, the 
city of navigators, of merchants. 

Katish, their sacred city, would be the city where 
sacrifices are ofi'ered. Cah, city, and tich, a ceremony 
practiced by the ancient Mayas, and still performed by 



49 

their descendants all through Central America. This 
sacrifice or ceremony consists in presenting to Balam, 
the Tumil-Kaax, the "Lord of the fields," the primitice 
of all their fruits before beginning the harvest. Katish, 
or cah-tich would then be the city of the sacrifices— the 
holy city. . 

Egypt is the country that in historical times has called, 
more than any other, the attention of the students, of all 
nations and in all ages, on account of the grandeur and 
beauty of its monuments ; the peculiarity of its inhabit- 
ants ; their advanced civilization, their great attainments 
in all branches of human knowledge and industry ; and 
its important position at the head of all other nations of 
antiquity. Egypt has been said to be the source from 
which human knowledge began to flow over the old world : 
yet no one knows for a certainty whence came the people 
that laid the first foundations of that interesting nation. 
That they were not autochthones is certain. Their 
learned priests pointed towards the regions of the West 
as the birth-place of their ancestors, and designated the 
country in which they lived, the East, as the pure land, 
the land of the sun, of light, in contradistinction of the 
country of the dead, of darkness — the Amenti, the West 
— where Osiris sat as King, reigning judge, over the 
souls. 

If in Hindostan, Afghanistan, Chaldea, Asia Minor, 
we have met with vestiges of the Mayas, in Egypt we 
will find their traces everywhere. Whatever may have 
been the name given to the valley watered by the Nile by 
its primitive inhabitants, no one at present knows. 
The invaders that came from the West called it Chem : 
not on account of the black color of the soil, as Plutarch 
pretends in his work, '•'' De Iside et Osiride,'''' but more 
likely because either they came to it in boats ; or, quite 
probably, because when they arrived the country was 
inundated, and the inhabitants communicated by means 
of boats, causing the new comers to call it the country 
of boats — Chem (may a). The hieroglyph representing 



60 

the name of Egypt is composed of the character used 
for land, a cross circumscribed by a circle, and of 
another, read K, which represent a sieve, it is said, 
but that may likewise be the picture of a small boat. 
The Assyrians designated Egypt under the names of 
MisiR or MisuR, probably because the country is gene- 
rally destitute of trees. These are uprooted during the 
inundations, and then carried by the currents all over 
the country; so that the farmers, in order to be able to plow 
the soil, are obliged to clear it first from the dead trees. 
Now we have the Maya verb Miz — to clean, to remove 
rnltbisTi formed iy the body of dead trees ; whilst the 
verb Mfsuk means to cut the trees by the roots. It would 
seem that the name Mizraim given to Egypt in the Scrip- 
tures also might come from these words. 

When the Western invaders reached the country it 
was probably covered by the waters of the river, to 
which, we are told, they gave the name of Hapimu, Its 
etymology seems to be yet undecided by the Egyptolo- 
gists, who agree, however, that its meaning is the abyss 
of water. The Maya tells us that this name is composed 
of two words— Ha, water, and pimil, the thickness of 
flat things. Hapimu, or Hapimil, would then be the 
thickness, the abyss of water. 

We find that the prophets Jeremiah (xlvi., 26,) and 
Nahum (iii. , 8, 10,) call Thebes, the capital of upper Egypt 
during the XVIII. dynasty: No or Na-amuist, the mansion 
of Amun. Nd signifies in Maya, house, mansion, residence. 
But Thebes is written in Egyptian hieroglyphs Ap, or 
Ape, the meaning of which is the head, the capital ; with 
the feminine article T, that is always used as its prefix 
in hieroglyphic writings, it becomes Tape; which, 
according to Sir Gardner Wilkinson (" Manners and Cus- 
toms of the Ancient Egyptians," torn. III., page 210, 
N. Y. Edition, 1878), was pronounced by the Egyptians 
Taba ; and in the Menphitic dialect Thaba, that the 
Greeks converted into Thebai, whence Thebes. The Maya 
verb Teppal, signifies to reign, to govern, to order. On 



51 

each side of the mastodons' heads, which form so promi- 
nent a feature in the ornaments of the oldest edifices 
at Uxmal, Chichen-Itza and other parts, the word Dajpas ; 
hence Tabas is written in ancient Egyptian characters, 
and read, I presume, in old Maya, head. To-day the 
word is pronounced thab, and means baldness. 

The identity of the names of deities worshiped by in- 
dividuals, of their religious rites and belief ; that of the 
names of the places which they inhabit ; the similarity 
of their customs, of their dresses and manners ; the same- 
ness of their scientific attainments and of the characters 
used by them in expressing their language in writing, 
lead us naturally to infer that they have had a common 
origin, or, at least, that their forefathers were intimately 
connected. If we may apply this inference to nations 
likewise, regardless of the distance that to-day separates 
the countries where they live, I can then afiirm that the 
Mayas and the Egyptians are either of a common de- 
scent, or that very intimate communication must have 
existed in remote ages between their ancestors. 

Without entering here into a full detail of the cus- 
toms and manners of these people, I will make a rapid 
comparison between their religious belief, their customs, 
manners, scientific attainments, and the characters used 
by them in- writing etc., sufficient to satisfy any reasona- 
ble body that the strange coincidences that follow can- 
not be altogether accidental. 

The Sun, EA, was the supreme god worshiped 
throughout the land of Egypt ; and its emblem was a 
disk or circle, at times surmounted by the serpent; 
Urseus. Egypt was frequently called the Land of the 
Sun. RA or LA signifies in Maya that which exists, em- 
phatically that which is — the truth. 

The sun was worshiped by the ancient Mayas ; and 
the Indians to-day preserve the dance used by their 
forefathers among the rites of the adoration of that lum- 
inary, and perform it yet in certain epoch of the year. 
The coat-of-arms of the city of Uxmal, sculptured on the 



52 

west fagade of the sanctuary, attached to the masonic 
temple in that city, teaches us that the place was called 
u LUUMiL Kiiq^, the land of the sun. This name forming 
the center of the escutcheon, is written with a cross, cir- 
cumscribed by a circle, that among the Egyptians is the 
sign for land, region, surrounded by the rays of the sun. 

Colors in Egypt, as in Mayab, s^eni to have had the 
same symbolical meaning. The figure of Amun was 
that of a man whose body was light blue, like the 
Indian god Wishnu, and that of the god Mlus ; as if to 
indicate their peculiar exalted and heavenly nature ; this 
color being that of the pure, bright skies above. The 
blue color had exactly the same significance in Mayab, 
according to Landa and Cogolludo, who tell us that, 
even at the time of the Spanish conquest, the bodies of 
those who were to be sacrificed to the gods were painted 
blue. The mural paintings in the) funeral chamber of 
Chaacmol, at Chichen, confirm this assertion. There 
we see figures of men and women painted blue, some 
marching to the sacrifice with their hands tied behind 
their backs. After being thus painted they were vener- 
ated by the people, who regarded them as sanctified. 
Blue in Egypt was always the color used at the funerals. 

The Egyptians believed in the immortality of the soul ; 
and that rewards and punishments were adjudged by 
Osiris, the king of the Amenti, to the souls according to 
their deeds during their mundane life. That the souls 
after a period of three thousand years were to return to 
earth and inhabit again their former earthly tenements. 
This was the reason why they took so much pains to em- 
balm the body. 

The Mayas" also believed in the in^mortality of the 
soul, as I have already said. Their belief was that after 
the spirit had suifered during a time proportioned to 
their misdeeds whilst on earth, and after having enjoy- 
ed an amount of bliss corresponding to their good ac- 
tions, they were to return to earth and live again a ma- 
terial life. Accordingly, as the body was corruptible, 



58 

they made statues of stones, terra-cotta, or wood, in the 
semblance of the deceased, whose ashes they deposited 
in a hollow made for that purpose in the back of 
the head. Sometimes also in stone urns, as in the case 
of Chaacmol. The spirits, on their return to earth, were 
to find these statues, impart life to them, and use them 
as body during their new existence. 

I am not certain but that, as the Egyptians also, they 
were believers in transmigration ; and that this belief ex- 
ists yet among the aborigines. I have noticed that my 
Indians were unwilling to kill any animal whatever, even 
the most noxious and dangerous, that inhabits the ruin- 
ed monuments. I have often told them to kill some ven- 
omous insect or serpent that may have happened to be in 
our way. They invariably refused to do so, but softly and 
carefully caused them to go. And when asked why they 
did not kill them, declined to answer except by a know- 
ing and mysterious smile, as if afraid to let a stranger 
into their intimate beliefs inherited from their ancestors : 
remembering, perhaps, the fearful treatment inflicted 
by fanatical friars on their fathers to oblige them to 
forego what they called the superstitions of their race — 
the idolatrous creed of their forefathers. 

I have had opportunity to discover that their faith in 
reincarnation, as many other time-honored credences, 
still exists among them, unshaken, notwithstanding the 
persecutions and tortures suffered by them at the hands 
of ignorant and barbaric Christians (?) 

I will give two instances when that belief in reincarna- 
tion was plainly manifested. 

The day that, after surmounting many difficulties, 
when my ropes and cables, made of withes and the 
bark of the Tiabin tree, were finished and adjusted to 
the capstan manufactured of hollow stones and trunks 
of trees ; and I had placed the ponderous statue of 
Chaacmol on rollers, already in position to drag it up 
the inclined plane made from the surface of the ground 
to a few feet above the bottom of the excavation ; my 



54 

men, actuated by their superstitious fears on the one 
hand, and their profound reverence for the memory of 
their ancestors on the other, unwilling to see the effigy 
of one of the great men removed from where their an- 
cestors had placed it in ages gone by resolved to bury 
it, by letting loose the hill of dry stones that formed the 
body of the mausoleum, and were kept from falling in 
the hole by a framework of thin trunks of trees tied 
with withes, and in order that it should not be injured, 
to capsize it, placing the face downward. They had 
already overturned it, when I interfered in time to pre- 
vent more mischief, and even save some of them from 
certain death ; since by cutting loose the withes that 
keep the framework together, the sides of the excava- 
tion were bound to fall in, and crush those at the bottom. 
I honestly think, knowing their superstitious feelings 
and propensities, that they had made up their mind to 
sacrifice their lives, in order to avoid what they consid- 
ered a desecration of the future tenement that the great 
warrior and king was yet to inhabit, when time had ar- 
rived. In order to overcome their scruples, and also to 
prove if my suspicions were correct, that, as their fore- 
fathers and the Egyptians of old, they still believed in re- 
incarnation, I caused them to accompany me to the summit 
of the great pyramid. There is a monument, that served 
as a castle when the city of the holy men, the Itzaes, was 
at the height of its splendor. Every anta, every pillar 
and column of this edifice is sculptured with portraits of 
warriors and noblemen. Among these many with long 
l)eards, whose types recall vividly to the mind the 
features of the Afghans. 

On one of the antse, at the entrance on the north side, 
is the portrait of a warrior wearing a long, straight, 
pointed beard. The face, like that of all the personages 
represented in the bas-reliefs, is in profile. I placed my 
head against the stone so as to present the same position 
of my face as that of Uxan, and called the attention of 
my Indians to the similarity of his and my own features. 



65 

They followed every lineament of tlie faces with their 
fingers to the very point of the beard, and soon uttered 
an exclamation of astonishment: '''Thou! here!'''' and 
slowly scanned again the features sculptured on the 
stone and my own. 

">Sb, 50," they said, " thou too art one of our great men, 
who has been disenchanted. Thou, too, wert a com-- 
panion of the great Lord Chaacmol. That is why thou 
didst know where he was hidden ; and thou hast comJe 
to disenchant him also. His time to live again on 
earth has then arrived.^'' 

From that moment every word of mine was implicitly 
obeyed. They returned to the excavation, and worked 
with such a good will, that they soon brought up the 
ponderous statue to the surface. 

A few days later some strange people made their ap- 
pearance suddenly and noiselessly in our midst. They 
emerged from the thicket one by one. Colonel Don 
Felipe Diaz, then commander of the troops covering 
the eastern frontier, had sent me, a couple of days pre- 
vious, a written notice, that I still preserve in my power, 
that tracks of hostile Indians had been discovered by 
his scouts, advising me to keep a sharp look out, lest 
fchey should surprise us. Now, to be on the look out in 
the midst of a thick, well-nigh impenetrable forest, is a 
rather difficult thing to do, particularly with only a few 
men, and where there is no road ; yet all being a road for 
the enemy. Warning my men that danger was near, 
and to keep their loaded rifles at hand, we continued 
our work as usual, leaving the rest to destiny. 

On seeing the strangers, my men rushed on their 
weapons, but noticing that the visitors had no guns, but 
only their machetes, I gave orders not to hurt them. At 
their head was a very old man : his hair was gray, his 
eyes blue with age. He would not come near the statue, 
but stood at a distance as if awe-struck, hat in hand, 
looking. at it. After a long time he broke out, speaking 
to his own people : "This, boys, is one of the great men 



56 

we speak to you about." Then the young men came 
forward, with great respect kneeled at the feet of the 
statue, and pressed their lips against them. 

Putting aside my own weapons, being consequently 
unarmed, I went to the old man, and asked him to ac- 
company me up to the castle, offering my arm to ascend 
the 100 steep and crumbling stairs. I again placed 
my face near that of my stone JSosis, and again the same 
scene was enacted as with my own men, with this differ- 
ence, that the strangers fell on their knees before me, 
and, in turn, kissed my hand. The old man after a 
while, eyeing me respectfully, but steadily, asked me : 
" Rememberest thou what happened to thee whilst thou 
wert enchanted ? " It was quite a difficult question to 
answer, and yet retain my superior position, for I did 
not know how many people might be hidden in the 
thicket. "Well, father," I asked him, " dreamest thou 
sometimes?" He nodded his head in an affirmative 
manner. "And when thou awakest, dost thou remem- 
ber distinctly thy dreams ? " "Jfa," no ! was the answer. 
"Well, father," I continued, "so it happened with me. 
I do not remember what took place during the time I 
was enchanted." This answer seemed to satisfy him. 
I again gave him my hand to help him down the pre- 
cipitous stairs, at the foot of which we separated, 
wishing them God-speed, and warning them not to go 
too near the villages on their way back to their homes, 
as people were aware of their presence in the country. 
Whence they came, I ignore ; where they went, I don't 
know. 

Circumcision was a rite in usage among the Egyptians 
since very remote times. The Mayas also practiced it, if 
we are to credit Fray Luis de Urreta ; yet CogoUudo af- 
firms that in his days the Indians denied observing such 
custom. The outward sign of utmost reverence seems 
to have been identical amongst both the Mayas and the 
Egyptians. It consisted in throwing the left arm across 
the chest, resting the left hand on the right shoulder ; or 



57 

tlie right arm across the chest, the right hand resting on 
the left shoulder. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, in his work 
above quoted, reproduces various figures in that attitude ; 
and Mr. Champollion Figeac, in his book on Egypt, tells 
us that in some cases even the mummies of certain emi- 
nent men were placed in their coffins with the arms 
in that position. That this same mark of respect was 
in use amongst the Mayas there can be no possible 
doubt. We see it in the figures represented in the act of 
worshiping the mastodon's head, on the west facade 
of the monument that forms the north wing of the 
palace and museum at Chichen-Itza, We see it repeatedly 
in the mural paintings in Chaacmol' s funeral cliamber ; 
on the slabs sculptured with the representation of a dy- 
ing warrior, that adorned the mausoleum of that chief- 
tain. Cogolludo mentions it in his history of Yucatan, 
as being common among the aborigines : and my own 
men have used it to show their utmost respect to persons 
or objects they consider worthy of their veneration. 
Among my collection of photographs are several plates 
in which some of the men have assumed that position of 
the arms spontaneously. 

The sistram was an instrument used by Egyptians and 
Mayas alike during the performance of their religious 
rites and acts of worship. I have seen it "used lately by 
natives in Yucatan in the dance forming part of the wor- 
ship of the sun. The Egyptians enclosed the brains, en- 
trails and viscera of the deceased in funeral vases, called 
canopas, that were placed in the tombs with the coffin. 
When I opened Chaacmol' s mausoleum I found, as I 
have already said, two stone urns, the one near the head 
containing the remains of brains, that near the chest 
those of the heart and other viscera. This fact would 
tend to show again a similar custom among the Mayas 
and Egyptians, who, besides, placed with the body an 
empty vase — symbol that the deceased had been judged 
and found righteous. This vase, held between the hands 
of the statue of Chaacmol, is also found held in the same 



58 

manner by many other statues of different individuals. 
It was customary with the Egyptians to deposit in the 
tombs the implements of the trade or profession of the 
deceased. So also with the Mayas — if a priest, they 
placed books ; if a warrior, his weapons ; if a mechanic, 
the tools of his art. 

The Egyptians adorned the tombs of the rich — which 
generally consisted of one or two chambers — with sculp- 
tures and paintings reciting the names and the history 
of the life of the personage to whom the tomb belonged. 
The mausoleum of Chaacmol, interiorly, was composed of 
three different superposed apartments, with their floors 
of concrete well leveled, polished and painted with yel- 
low ochre ; and exteriorly was adorned with magnificent 
bas-reliefs, representing his totem and that of his wife — 
dying warriors — the whole being surrounded by the 
image of a feathered serpent — Can^ his family name, 
whilst the walls of the two apartments, or funeral cham- 
bers, in the monument raised to his memory, were deco- 
rated with fresco paintings, representing not only Chaac- 
mol' s own life, but the manners, customs, mode of 
dressing of his contemporaries ; as those of the different 
nations with which they were in communication : dis- 
tinctly recognizable by their type, stature and other pe- 
culiarities. The portraits of the great and eminent men 
of his time are sculptured on the jambs and lintels of 
the doors, represented life-size. 

In Egypt it was customary to paint the sculptures, 
either on stone or wood, with bright colors — yellow, blue, 
red, green predominating. In Mayab the same custom 
prevailed, and traces of these colors are still easily dis- 
cernible on the sculptures; whilst they are still very 
brilliant on the beautiful and highly polished stucco of 
the walls in the rooms of certain monuments at Chich- 
en-Itza. The Maya artists seem to have used mostly 
vegetable colors ; yet they also employed ochres as pig- 
ments, and cinnabar — we having found such metallic colors 
in Chaacmol' s mausoleum. Mrs. Le Plongeon still pre- 



69 

serves some in her possession. From where they pro- 
cured it is more than we can tell at present. 

The wives and daughters of the Egyptian kings and 
noblemen considered it an honor to assist in the temples 
and religions ceremonies: one of their principal duties 
being to play the sistrum. 

We find that in Yucatan, NioU (flower) the sister of 
Chaacmol, assisted her elder brother, Cay, the pontiff, 
in the sanctuary, her name being always associated with 
his in the inscriptions which adorn the western f a9ade of 
that edifice at Uxmal, as that of her sister, Mb, is with 
Chaacmol' s in some of the monuments at Chichen. 

CogoUudo, when speaking of the priestesses, mrgins 
of the sun, mentions a tradition that seems to refer to 
Nicte, stating that the daughter of a king, who remained 
during all her life in the temple, obtained after her death 
the honor of apotheosis, and was worshiped under the 
name of Zuhuy-Kak (the fire-virgin), and became the 
goddess of the maidens, who were recommended to her 
care. 

As in Egypt, the kings and heroes were worshiped in 
Mayab after their death ; temples and pyramids being 
raised to their memory. Cogolludo pretends that the 
lower classes adored fishes, snakes, tigers and other ab- 
ject animals, " even the devil himself, which appeared to 
them in horrible forms" (" Historiade Yucatan," book 
IV., chap, vii.) 

Judging from the sculptures and mural paintings, the 
higher classes in May ah wore, in very remote ages, 
dresses of quite an elaborate character. Their under 
garment consisted of short trowsers, reaching the middle 
of the thighs. At times these trowsers were highly 
ornamented with embroideries and fringes, as they 
formed their only article of clothing when at home ; over 
these they wore a kind of kilt, very similar to that used 
by the inhabitants of the Highlands in Scotland. It was 
fastened to the waist with wide ribbons, tied behind in 
a knot forming a large bow, the ends of which reached 



60 

to the ankles. Their shoulders were covered with a tip- 
pet falling to the elbows, and fastened on the chest by 
means of a brooch. Their feet were protected by sandals, 
kept in place by ropes or ribbons, passing between the 
big toe and the next, and between the third and fourth, 
then brought up so as to encircle the ankles. They were 
tied in front, forming a bow on the instep. Some wore 
leggings, others garters and anklets made of feathers, 
generally yellow ; sometimes, however, they may have 
been of gold. Their head gears were of diiferent kinds, 
according to their rank and dignity. Warriors seem to 
have used wide bands, tied behind the head with two 
knots, as we see in the statue of Chaacmol, and in the 
bas-reliefs that adorn the queen's chamber at Chichen. 
The king's coiffure was a peaked cap, that seems to 
have served as model for the pscTient, that symbol of 
domination over the lower Egypt ; with this difference, 
however, that in Mayab the point formed the front, and 
in Egypt the back. 

The common people in Mayab, as in Egypt, were in- 
deed little troubled by their garments. These consisted 
merely of a simple girdle tied round the loins, the ends 
falling before and behind to the middle of the thighs. 
Sometimes they also used the short trowsers ; and, when 
at work, wrapped a piece of cloth round their loins, long 
enough to cover their legs to the knees. This costume 
was completed by wearing a square cloth, tied on one of 
the shoulders by two of its corners. It served as cloak. 
To-day the natives of Yucatan wear the same dress, 
with but slight modifications. While the aborigines of 
the Tierra de Guerra, who still preserve the customs of 
their forefathers, untainted by foreign admixture, use the 
same garments, of their own manufacture, that we see 
represented in the bas-reliefs of Chichen and Uxmal, 
and in the mural paintings of Mayab and Egypt. 

Divination by the inspection of the entrails of victims, 
and the study of omens were considered by the Egyptians 
as important branches of learning. The soothsayers 



61 

formed a respected order of tlie priesthood. From the 
mural paintings at Chichen, and from the works of 
the chroniclers, we learn that the Mayas also had several 
manners of consulting fate. One of the modes was by the 
inspection of the enti ails of victims ; another by the man- 
ner of the cracking of the shell of a turtle or armadillo 
by the action of fire, as among the Chinese. (In the 
Hong-fan or " the great and sublime doctrine," one of 
the books of t\\Q.Ghou-king, the ceremonies of Pou and 
Chi are described at length). The Mayas had also their 
astrologers and prophets. Several prophecies, purport- 
ing to have been made by their priests, concerning the 
preaching of the Gospel among the people of Mayab, have 
reached us, preserved in the works of Landa, Lizana, and 
CogoUudo. There we also read that, even at the time of 
the Spanish conquest, they came from all parts of the 
country, and congregated at the shrine of Kinich-kaTcmo^ 
the deified daughter of Caw, to listen to the oracles de- 
livered by her through the mouths of her priests and 
consult her on future events. By the examination of the 
mural paintings, we know that animal magnetisTn was 
understood and practiced by the priests, who, themselves, 
seem to have consulted clairvoyants. 

The learned priests of Egypt are said to have made 
considerable progress in astronomical sciences. 

The gnomon, discovered by me in December, last year, 
in the ruined city of Mayapan, would tend to prove that 
the learned men of Mayab were not only close observers 
of the march of the celestial bodies and good mathema- 
ticians ; but that their attainments in astronomy were not 
inferior to those- of their brethren of Chaldea. Effectively 
the construction of the gnomon shows that they had 
found the means of calculating the latitude of places, 
that they knew the distance of the solsticeal points from 
the equator ; they had found that the greatest angle of 
declination of the sun, 23° 27', occurred when that lumi- 
nary reached the tropics where, during nearly three days, 
said angle of declination does not vary, for which reason 
they said that the sun had arrived at his resting place. 



62 

The Egyptians, it is said, in very remote ages, divided 
the year by lunations, as the Mayas, who divided their 
civil year into eighteen months, of twenty days , that 
they called u— moon — to which they added five supple- 
mentary days, that they considered unlucky. From 
an epoch so ancient that it is referred to the fabulous 
time of their history, the Egyptians adopted the solar 
year, dividing it into twelve months, of thirty days, to 
which they added, at the end of the last month, called 
Mesore, five days, named Eyact. 

By a most remarkable coincidence, the Egyptians, as 
the Mayas, considered these additive five days unlucky. 

Besides this solar year they had a sideral or sothic 
year, com^DOsed of 365 days and 6 hours, whicb. corres- 
ponds exactly to the Mayas sacred year, that Landa 
tells us was also composed of 365 days and 6 hours ; 
which they represented in the gnomon of Mayapan by 
the line that joins the centers of the stela that forms it. 

The Egyptians, in their computations, calculated by a 
system of ii'ms and tens ; the Mayas by a system of jives 
and twenties., to four hundred. Their sacred number ap- 
pears to have been 13 from the remotest antiquity, but 
SEVEN seems to have been a mystic number among them as 
among the Hindoos, Aryans, Chaldeans, Egyptians, and 
other nations. 

The Egyptians made use of a septenary system in the 
arrangement of the grand gallery in the center of the 
great pyramid. Each side of the wall is made of seven 
courses of finely polished stones, the one above over- 
lapping that below, thus forming the triangular ceiling 
common to all the edifices in Yucatan. This gallery is 
said to be seven times the height of the other passages, 
and, as all the rooms in Uxmal, Chichen and other places 
inMayab, it is seven- sided. Some authors pretend to 
assume that this well marked septenary system has refer- 
ence to the Pleiades or Seven stars. Alcyone, the central 
star of the group, being, it is said, on the same meridian 
as the pyramid, when it was constructed, and Alpha of 
Draconis, the then pole star, at its lower culmination. 



63 

But if, as the Rev. Joseph A. Seiss and others pre- 
tend, the scientific attainments required for the construc- 
tion of such enduring monument surpassed those of the 
learned men of Egypt, we must, of necessity, believe that 
the architect who conceived the plan and carried out 
its designs must have acquired his knowledge from an 
older people, possessing greater learning than the priests 
of Memphis ; unless we try to persuade ourselves, as the 
reverend gentleman wishes us to, that the great pyramid 
was built under the direct inspiration of the Almighty. 

Nearly all the monuments of Yucatan bear evidence 
that the Mayas had a predilection for number seven. 
Since we find that their artificial mounds were composed 
of seven superposed platforms ; that the cit}^ of Uxmal 
contained seven of these mounds ; that the nortli side of 
the palace of King Can was adorned with seven turrets ; 
that the entwined serpents, his totem, which adorn the 
east f agade of the west wing of this building, have seven 
rattles; that the head-dress of kings and queens were 
adorned with seven blue feathers ; in a word, that the 
number seven prevails in all places and in everything 
where Maya influence has predominated. 

It is a FACT, and one that may not be altogether de- 
void of significance, that this number seven seems to 
have been the mystic number of many of the nations of 
antiquity. It has even reached our times as such, being 
used as symbol by several of the secret societies existing 
among us. 

If we look back through the vista of ages to the dawn 
of civilized life in the countries known as the old worlds 
we find this number seven among the Asiatic nations as 
well as in Egypt and Mayab. Effectively, in Babylon, 
the celebrated temple of the seven lights was made of 
seten stages or platforms. In the hierarchy of Maz- 
deism, the seven marouts, or genii of the winds, the 
seven amscTiaspands ; then among the Aryans and their 
descendants, the seven horses that drew the chariot of 
the sun, the seven apris or shape of the flame, the seven 



64 

rays of Agni, the seven manons or criators of the Vedas; 
among the Hebrews, the seven days of the creation, the 
seven lamps of the ark and of Zacharias' s vision, the seven 
branches of the golden candlestick, the seven days of 
the feast of the dedication of the temple of Solomon, 
the seven years of plenty, the seven years of famine ; in 
the Christian dispensation, the seven churches with the 
seven angels at their head, the seven golden candle- 
sticks, the seven seals of the book, the seven trumpets 
of the angels, the seven heads of the beast that rose 
from the sea, the seven vials full of the wrath of God, 
the seven last plagues of the Apocalypse ; in the Greek 
mythology, the seven heads of the hydra, killed by Her- 
cules, etc. 

The origin of the prevalence of that number seven 
amongst all the nations of earth, even the most remote 
from each other, has never been satisfactorily explained, 
each separate people giving it a different interpretation, 
according to their belief and to the tenets of their religious 
creeds. As far as the Mayas are concerned, I think to 
have found that it originated with the seven members of 
Can's family, who were the founders of the principal 
cities of May ah, and to each of whom was dedicated a 
mound in Uxmal and a turret in their palace. Their 
names, according to the inscriptions carved on the monu- 
ments raised by them at Uxmal and Chichen, were — 
Can (serpent) and ooz (bat), his wife, from whom were 
born Cay (fish), the pontiff ; Aak (turtle), who became 
the governor of Uxmal ; Chaacmol (leopard), the war- 
rior, who became the husband of his sister Mo6 (macaw), 
the Queen of GMchen, worshiped after her death at 
Izamal ; and Nicte (flower), the priestess who, under 
the name of Zuhuy-KuTc, became the goddess of the 
maidens. 

The Egyptians, in expressing their ideas in writing, used 
three different kinds of characters — phonetic, ideographic 
and symbolic — placed either in vertical columns or in 
horizontal lines, to be read from right to left, from left 



65 

to right, as indicated by the position of the figures of 
men or animals. So, also, the Mayas in their writings em • 
ployed phonetic, symbolic and ideographic signs, com- 
bining these often, forming monograms as we do to-day, 
placing them in such a manner as best suited the arrange- 
ment of the ornamentation of the fagade of the edifices. 
At present we can only speak with certainty of the monu- 
mental inscriptions, the books that fell in the hands of 
the ecclesiastics at the time of the conquest having been 
destroyed. No truly genuine written monuments of the 
Mayas are known to exist, except those inclosed within 
the sealed apartments, where the priests and learned 
men of Mayab hid them from the Nahualt or Toltec 
invaders. 

As the Egyptians, they wrote in vertical columns and 
horizontal lines, to be read generally from right to left. 
The space of this small essay does not allow me to enter 
in more details ; they belong naturally to a work of dif- 
ferent nature. Let it therefore sufiice, for the present 
purpose, to state that the comparative study of the lan- 
guage of the^Mayas led us to suspect that, as it contains 
words belonging to nearly all the known languages of 
antiquity, and with exactly the same meaning, in their 
mode of writing might be found letters or characters or 
signs used in those tongues. Studying with attention the 
photographs made by us of the inscriptions of Uxmal and 
Chichen, we were not long in discovering that our sur- 
mises were indeed correct. The inscriptions, written in 
squares or parallelograms, that might well have served as 
models for the ancient hieratic Chaldeans, of the time of 
King Uruck, seem to contain ancient Clialdee, Egyptian 
and Etruscan characters, together with others that seem 
to be purely Mayab. 

Applying these known characters to the decipherment 
of the inscriptions, giving them their accepted value, we 
soon found that the language in which they are written 
is, in the main, the vernacular of the aborigines of 
Yucatan and other parts of Central America to-day. Of 



course, the original mother tongue having suffered some 
alterations, in consequence of changes in customs induced 
by time, invasions, intercourse with other nations, and 
the many other natural causes that are known to affect 
man's speech. 

The Mayas and the Egyptians had many signs and 
characters identical; possessing the same alphabetical 
and symbolical value in both nations. Among the sym- 
bolical, I may cite a few : watei\ country or region, Icing, 
Lord, offerings, splendor, the various emblems of the 
sun and many others. Among the alphabetical, a very 
large number of the so-called Demotic, by Egyptologists, 
are found even in the inscription of the Akdboih at 
Chichen ; and not a few of the most ancient Egyptian 
hieroglyphs in the mural inscriptions at Uxmal, In 
these I have been able to discover the Egyptian charac- 
ters corresponding to our own. 

A a, B, C, CH or K, D, T, I, L, M, N, H, P, TZ, PP, U, 
00, X, having the same sound and value as in the 
Spanish language, with the exception of the K, TZ, PP 
and X, which are pronounced in a way peculiar to the 
Mayas. The inscriptions also contain these letters, 
A, I, X and PP identical to the corresponding in the 
Etruscan alphabet. The finding of the value of these 
characters has enabled me to decipher, among other 
things, the names of the founders of the city of Uxmal ; 
as that of the city itself. This is written apparently in 
two different ways : whilst, in fact, the sculptors have 
simply made use of two homophone signs, notwith- 
standing dissimilar, of the letter M. As to the name of 
the founders, not only are they written in alphabetical 
characters, but also in ideographic, since they are accom- 
panied in many instances by the totems of the personages: 
e. g for Aak, which means turtle, is the image of a 
turtle ; for Cay (fish), the image of a fish ; for Chaacmol 
(leopard) the image of a leopard ; and so on, precluding 
the possibility of misinterpretation. 

Having found that the language of the inscriptions was 



67 

Maya, of course I had no difficulty in giving to each 
letter its proper phonetic value, since, as I have already 
said, Maya is still the vernacular of the people. 

I consider that the few facts brought together will suf- 
fice at present to show, if nothing else, a strange simi- 
larity in the workings of the mind in these two nations. 
But if these remarkable coincidences are not merely 
freaks of hazard, we will be compelled to admit that one 
people must have learned it from the other. Then will 
naturally arise the questions, Which the teacher? 
Which the pupil ? The answer will not only solve an 
ethnological problem, but decide the question of priority. 

I will now briefly refer to the myth of Osiris, the son 
of 8eb and Nut, the brother of Aroeris, the elder Horus, 
of Tppho, of Isis, and of JVepMMs, named also Nike. 
The authors have given numerous explanations, result of 
fancy ; of the mythological history of that god, famous 
throughout Egypt. They made him a personification of 
the inundations of the Nile ; Isis, his wife and sister, 
that of the irrigated portion of the land of Egypt ; their 
sister, NepJitMs, that of the barren edge of the desert 
occasionally fertilized by the waters of the Nile ; his 
brother and murderer Tlpho, that of the sea which swal- 
lows up the Nile. 

Leaving aside the mythical lores, with which the priests 
of all times and all countries cajole the credulity of igno- 
rant and superstitious people, we find that among the 
traditions of the past, treasured in the mysterious 
recesses of the temples, is a history of the life of Osiris 
on Earth. Many wise men of our days have looked upon 
it as fabulous. I am not ready to say whether it is or it 
is not ; but this I can assert, that, in many parts, it 
tallies marvelously with that of the culture hero of the 
Mayas. 

It will be said, no doubt, that this remarkable simi- 
larity is a mere coincidence. But how are we to dispose 
of so many coincidences ? What conclusion, if any, are 
we to draw from this concourse of so many strange 
similes 'i 



68 

In this case, I cannot do better than to quote, verbatim, 
from Sir Gardner Wilkinson's work, chap, xiii: 

' ' Osiris, having become King of Egypt, applied himself towards civilizing 
' ' his countrymen, by turning them from their former barbarous course of 
"life, teaching them, moreover, to cultivate and improve the fruits of the 
"earth. ***** With the same good disposition, he afterwards 
"traveled over the rest of the world, inducing the people every where to 
" submit to his discipline, by the mildest persuasion." 

The rest of the story relates to the manner of his killing 
by his brother Typho, the disposal of his remains, the 
search instituted by his wife to recover the body, how it 
was stolen again from her by Typho, who cut him to 
pieces, scattering them over the earth, of the final defeat 
of Typho by Osiris' s son, Horus. 

Reading the description, above quoted, of the endea- 
vors of Osiris to civilize the world, who would not imagine 
to be perusing the traditions of the deeds of the culture 
heroes Kukulean and Quetzalcoatl of the Mayas and of 
the Aztecs? Osiris was particularly worshiped at 
Philo, where the history of his life is curiously illustrated 
in the sculptures of a small retired chamber, lying nearly 
over the western adytum of the temple, Just as that of 
Chaacmol in the mural paintings of his funeral chamber, 
the bas-reliefs of what once was his mausoleum, in those 
of the queen's chamber and of her box in the tennis 
court at Chichen. 

" The mysteries of Osiris were divided into the greater and less mysteries. 
"Before admission into the former, it was necessary that the initiated 
"should have passed through all the gradations of the latter. But to merit 
"this great honor, much was expected of the candidate, and many even of 
" the priesthood were unable to obtain it. Besides the proofs of a virtuous 
"life, other recommendations were required, and to be admitted to all the 
" grades of the higher mysteries was the greatest honor to which any one 
"could aspire. It was from these that the mysteries of Eleusis were bor- 
" rowed." Wilkinson, chap. xiii. 

In Mayab there also existed mysteries, as proved by 
symbols discovered in the month of June last by myself 
in the monument generally called the Dwarfs House, 
at Uxmal. It seemed that the initiated had to pass 



69 

through different gradations to reach the highest or third ; 
if we are to Judge by the number of rooms dedicated to 
their performance, and the disposition of said rooms. 
The strangest part, perhaps, of this discovery is the 
information it gives us that certain signs and symbols 
were used by the affiliated, that are perfectly identical to 
those used among the masons in their symbolical lodges. 
I have lately published in Harper'' s Weekly, a full de- 
scription of the building, with plans of the same, and 
drawings of the signs and symbols existing in it. These 
secret societies exist still among the Zunis and other 
Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, according to the rela- 
tions of Mr. Frank H. Gushing, a gentleman sent by the 
Smithsonian Institution to investigate their customs and 
history. In order to comply with the mission intrusted 
to him, Mr. Gushing has caused his adoption in the tribe 
of the Zunis, whose language he has learned, whose 
habits he has adopted. Among the other remarkable 
things he has discovered is "the existence of twelve 
" sacred orders, with their priests and their secret rites as 
' ' carefully guarded as the secrets of freemasonry, an 
" institution to which these orders have a strange resem- 
"blance." (From the New York Times.) 

If from Egypt we pass to Nubia, we find that the pecu- 
liar battle ax of the Mayas was also used by the warriors 
of that country; whilst many of the customs of the inhabit- 
ants of equatorial Africa, as described by Mr. DuCnaillu 
in the relation of his voyage to the " Land of Ashango," 
so closely resemble those of the aborigines of Yucatan 
as to suggest that intimate relations must have existed, 
in very remote ages, between their ancestors ; if the 
admixture of African blood, clearly discernible still, 
among the natives of certain districts of the peninsula, 
did not place that fact without the peradventure of a 
doubt. We also see figures in the mural paintings, at 
Ghichen, with strongly marked African features. 

We learned by the discovery of the statue of Ghaacmol, 
and that of the priestess found by me at the foot of the 



70 

altar in front of the shrine of Ix-cuina, the Maya 
Venus, situated at the south end of Isla Mugeres, it was 
customary with persons of hi^h rank to file their teeth 
in sharp points like a saw. We read in the chronicles that 
this fashion still prevailed after the Spanish conquest ; 
and then by little and little fell into disuse. Travelers 
tells us that it is yet in vogue among many of the tribes 
in the interior of South America; particularly those whose 
names seem to connect with the ancient Caribs or Carians. 

Du Chaillu asserts that the Ashangos, those of Otamo, 
the Apossos, the Fans, and many other tribes of equator- 
ial Africa, consider it a mark of beauty to file their front 
teeth in a sharp point. He presents the Fans as con- 
firmed cannibals. We are told, and the bas-reliefs on 
Chaacmol's mausoleum prove it, that the Mayas de- 
voured the hearts of their fallen enemies. It is said that, 
on certain grand occasions, after offering the hearts of 
their victims to the idols, they abandoned the bodies to 
the people, who feasted upon them. But it must be noticed 
that these last-mentioned customs seemed to have been 
introduced in the country by the ]^}'ahualts and Aztecs ; 
since, as yet, we have found nothing in the mural paint- 
ings to cause us to believe that the Mayas indulged in 
such barbaric repasts, beyond the eating of their enemies' 
hearts. 

The Mayas were, and their descendants are still, con- 
firmed believers in witchcraft. In December, last year, 
being at the hacienda of X-Kanchacan, where are situated 
the ruins of the ancient city of Mayapan, a sick man was 
brought to me. He came most reluctantly, stating that 
he knew what was the matter with him : that he was 
doomed to die unless the spell was removed. He was 
emaciated, seemed to suffer from malarial fever, then 
prevalent in the place, and from the presence of tape- 
worm. I told him I could restore him to health if he 
would heed my advice. The fellow stared at me for some 
time, trying to find out, probably, if I was a stronger 
wizard than the H-Men who had bewitched him. He 



71 

must ha,ve failed to discover on my face the proverbial 
distinctive marks great sorcerers are said to possess; for, 
with an incredulous grin, stretching his thin lips tighter 
over his teeth, he simply replied: "No use — I am be- 
witched — there is no remedy for me.'' 

Mr. Du Chaillu, speaking of the superstitions of the 
inhabitants of Equatorial Africa, says: "The greatest 
"curse of the whole country is the belief in sorcery or 
"witchcraft. If the African is once possessed with the 
"belief that he is bewitched his whole nature seems to 
"change. He becomes suspicious of his dearest friends. 
"He fancies himself sick, and really often becomes sick 
"through his fears. At least seventy-five per cent, of 
"the deaths in all the tribes are murders for supposed 
"sorcery." In that they differ from the natives of 
Yucatan, who respect wizards because of their supposed 
supernatural powers. 

From the most remote antiquity, as we learn from the 
writings of the chroniclers, in all sacred ceremonies the 
Mayas used to make copious libations with BalchS. To- 
day the aborigines still use it in the celebrations 
of their ancient rites. BalcM is a liquor made from the 
bark of a tree called Balche, soaked in water, mixed 
with honey and left to ferment. It is their beverage par 
excellence. The nectar drank by the God of" Greek 
Mythology. 

Du Chaillu, speaking of the recovery to health of the 
King of Mayolo, a city in which he resided for some 
time, says : "Next day he was so much elated with the 
"improvement in his health that he got tipsy on a fer- 
" mented beverage which he had prepared two days be- 
"fore he had fallen ill, and which he made hy mixing 
^^ honey and water, and adding to it pieces of harTc of 
"a certain tree.'" (Journey to Ashango Land, page 183.) 

I will remark here that, by a strange coincidence, we 
not only find that the inhabitants of Equatorial Africa 
have customs identical with the Mayas, but that the 
name of one of their cities Mayo^, seems to be a corrup- 
tion of Mayab. 



72 

The Africans make offerings upon the graves of their 
departed friends, where they deposit furniture, dress 
and food — and sometimes slay slaves, men and women, 
over the graves of kings and chieftains, with the belief 
that their spirits join that of him in whose honor they 
have been sacrificed, 

T have already said that it was customary with the 
Mayas to place in the tombs part of the riches of the de- 
ceased and the implements of his trade or profession ; 
and that the great quantity of blood found scattered 
round the slab on which the statue of Chaacmol is reclin- 
ing would tend to suggest that slaves were sacrificed at 
his funeral. 

The Mayas of old were wont to abandon the house 
where a person had died. Many still observe that same 
custom when they can afford to do so ; for they believe 
that the spirit of the departed hovers round it. 

The Africans also abandon their houses, remove even 
the site of their villages when death frequently occur ; 
for, say they, the place is no longer good ; and they fear 
the spirits of those recently deceased. 

Among the musical instruments used by the Mayas 
there were two kinds of drums — the Turikul and the 
Zacatan. They are still used hy the aborigines in their 
religious festivals and dances. 

The Tuiikul is a cylinder hollowed from the trunk of a 
tree, so as to leave it about one inch in thickness all 
round. It is generally about four feet in length. On one 
side two slits are cut, so as to leave between them a strip 
of about four inches in width, to within six inches from 
the ends ; this strip is divided in the middle, across, so 
as to form, as it were, tongues. It is by striking on those 
tongues with two balls of india-rubber, attached to the 
end of sticks, that the instrument is played. The volume 
of sound produced is so great that it can be heard, is is 
said, at a distance of six miles in calm weather. The 
Zacatan is another sort of drum, also hollowed from the 
trunk of a tree. This is opened at both ends. On one end 



IB 

a piece of skin is tightly stretched. It is by beating on 
the skin with the hand, the instrument being supported 
between the legs of the drummer, in a slanting position, 
that it is played. 

Du Chaillu, Stanley and other travelers in Africa tell 
us that, in case of danger and to call the clans together, 
the big war drum is beaten, and is heard many miles 
around. Du Chaillu asserts having seen one of these 
Ifgoma, formed of a hollow log, nine feet long, at Apono; 
and describes a I^^an drum which corresponds to the Za- 
catan of the Mayas as follows : ' ' The cylinder was about 
"four feet long and ten inches in diameter at one end, but 
'■' only seven at the other. The wood was hollowed out 
" quite thin, and the skin stretched over tightly. To beat 
"it the drummer held it slantingly between his legs, and 
" with two sticks beats furiously upon the upper, which 
" was the larger end of the cylinder." 

We have the counterpart of the fetish houses, contain- 
ing the skulls of the ancestors and some idol or other, seen 
by Du Chaillu, in African towns, in the small huts con- 
structed at the entrance of all the villages in Yucatan. 
These huts or shrines contain invariably a crucifix; at 
times the image of some saint, often a skull. The last 
probably to cause the wayfarer to remember he has to 
die ; and that, as he cannot carry with him his worldly 
treasures on the other side of the grave, he had better de- 
posit some in the alms box firmly fastened at the foot of 
the cross. CogoUudo informs us these little shrines were 
anciently dedicated to the god of lovers, of histrions, of 
dancers, and an infinity of small idols that were placed 
at the entrance of the villages, roads and staircases of 
the temples and other parts. 

Even the breed of African dogs seems to be the same 
as that of the native dogs of Yucatan. Were I to describe 
these I could not make use of more appropriate words 
than the following of Du Chaillu: "The pure bred na^ 
"tivedog is small, has long straight ears, long muzzle 
" and long curly tail ; the hair is short and the color yel- 



74 

" lowish; the pure breed being known by the clearness of 
"his color. They are always lean, and are kept very 
' ' short of food by their owners. * * * Although 
"they have quick ears; I don" t think highly of their 
" scent. They are good watch dogs." 

I could continue this list of similes, but methinks those 
already mentioned as sufficient for the present purpose, 
I will therefore close it by mentioning this strange belief 
that Du Chaillu asserts exists among the African war- 
riors: "7%e charmed leoparcU's skin worn about the 
warrior^ s middle is supposed to render that worthy spear- 
proof.'*'' 

Let us now take a brief retrospective glance at the 
FACTS mentioned in the foregoing pages. They seem to 
teach us that, in ages so remote as to be well nigh lost in 
the abyss of the past, the Mayas were a great and power- 
ful nation, whose people had reached a high degree of 
civilization. That it is impossible for us to form a cor- 
rect idea of their attainments, since only the most en- 
during monuments, built by them, have reached us, re- 
sisting the disintegrating action of time and atmosphere. 
That, as the English of to-day, they had colonies all over 
the earth ; for we find their name, their traditions, their 
customs and their language scattered in many distant 
countries, among whose inhabitants they apparently ex- 
ercised considerable civilizing influence, since they gave 
names to their gods, to their tribes, to their cities. 

We cannot doubt that the colonists carried with them 
the old traditions of the mother country, and the history 
of the founders of their nationality ; since we find them 
in the countries where they seem to have established 
large settlements soon after leaving the land of their 
birth. In course of time these traditions have become 
disfigured, wrapped, as it were, in myths, creations of 
fanciful and untutored imaginations, as in Hindostan : 
or devises of crafty priests, striving to hide the truth 
from the ignorant mass of the people, fostering their su- 
perstitions, in order to preserve unbounded and undis- 
puted sway over them, as in Egypt. 



75 

In Hindostan, for example, we find the Maya custom 
of carrying the children astride on the hips of the nurses. 
That of recording the vow of the devotees, or of implor- 
ing the blessings of deity by the imprint of the hand, 
dipped in red liquid, stamped on the walls of the 
shrines and palaces. The worship of the mastodon, 
still extant in India, Siam, Burmah, as in the worship 
of Ganeza, the god of knowledge, with an elephant 
head, degenerated in that of the elephant itself. 

Still extant we find likewise the innate propensity of 
the Mayas to exclude all foreigners from their country ; 
even to put to death those who enter their territories 
(as do, even to-day, those of Santa Cruz and the inhab- 
itants of the Tierra de Guerra) as the emissaries of Rama 
were informed by the friend of the owner of the country, 
the widow of the ^rea^ architect, Maya, whose name 
Hema means in the Maya language "she who places 
ropes across the roads to impede the passage." Even 
the history of the death of her husband Maya, killed 
with a thunderbolt, by the god Pourandara, whose 
jealousy was aroused by his love for her and their mar- 
riage, recalls that of CTiaacmol, the husband of Moo, 
killed by their brother Aac, by being stabbed by him 
three times in the back with a spear, through jealousy — 
for he also loved Moo. 

Some Maya tribes, after a time, probably left their home 
at the South of Hindostan and emigrated to Afghanis- 
tan, where their descendants still live and have villages 
on the North banks of the river Kabul. They left be- 
hind old traditions, that they may have considered as 
mere fantasies of their poets, and other customs of their 
forefathers. Yet we know so little about the ancient 
Afghans, or the Maya tribes living among them, that it is 
impossible at present to say how much, if any, they have 
preserved of the traditions of their race. All we know 
for a certainty is that many of the names of their vil- 
lages and tribes are pure American-Maya words : that 
their types are very similar to the features of the bearded 



76 

men carved on the pillars of the castle, and on thie walls 
of other edifices at Chichen-Itza: while their warlike 
habits recall those of the Mayas, who fought so bravely 
and tenaciously the Spanish invaders. 

Some of the Maj^a tribes, traveling towards the west 
and northwest, reached probably the shores of Ethiopia ; 
while others, entering the Persian Gfulf, landed near the 
embouchure of the Euphrates, and founded their primi- 
tive capital at a short distance from it. They called it 
Hur {Hula) city of guests just arrimd — and according 
to Berosus gave themselves the name of Khaldi; probably 
because they intrenched their city: jS'(3^? meaning intrench- 
ment in the American- Maya language. We have seen 
that the names of all the principal deities of the primitive 
Chaldeans had a natural etymology in that tongue. Such 
strange coincidences cannot be said to be altogether acci- 
dental. Particularly when we consider that their learned 
men were designated as Magi, (Mayas) and their Chief 
Rob-Mag^ meaning, in Maya, the old man; and were great 
architects, mathematicians and astronomers. As again 
we know of them but imperfectly, we cannot tell what 
traditions they had preserved of the birthplace of their 
forefathers. But by the inscriptions on the tablets or 
bricks, found at Mugheir and Warka, we know for a 
certainty that, in the archaic writings, they formed their 
characters of straight lines of uniform thickness ; and in- 
closed their sentences in squares or parallelograms, as 
did the founders of the ruined cities of Yucatan. And 
from the signet cylinder of King Urukh, that their mode 
of dressing was identical with that of many personages 
represented in the mural paintings at Chichen-Itza. 

We have traced the Mayas again on the shores of Asia 
Minor, where the Carians at last established themselves, 
after having spread terror among the populations border- 
ing on the Mediterranean. Their origin is unknown: but 
their customs were so similar to those of the inhabitants 
of Yucatan at the time even of the Spanish conquest — 
and their names Cak, Garib or Oarians, so extensively 



77 

spread over the western continent, that we might well 
surmise, that, navigators as they were, they came from 
those parts of the world ; particularly when we are told 
by the Greek poets and historians, that the goddess 
Maia was the daughter of Atlantis. We have seen 
that the names of the khati, those of their cities, that 
of Tyre, and finally that of Egypt, have their etymology 
in the Maya. 

Considering the numerous coincidences already" pointed 
out, and many more I could bring forth, between the 
attainments and customs of the Mayas and the Egyp- 
tians ; in view also of the fact that the priests and learned 
men of Egypt constantly pointed toward the West as the 
birthplace of their ancestors, it would seem as if a col- 
onj, starting from Mayab, had emigrated Eastward, 
and settled on the banks of the Nile; just as the Chinese 
to-day, quitting their native land and traveling toward 
the rising sun, establish themselves in America. 

In Egypt again, as inHindostan, we find the history of 
the children of Can, preserved among the secret traditions 
treasured up by the priests in the dark recesses of their 
temples : the same story, even with all its details. It is 
Typho who kills his brother Osieis, the husband of their 
sister Isis. Some of the names only have been changed 
when the members of the royal family of Can, the 
founder of the cities of Mayab, reaching apotheosis, were 
presented to the people as gods, to be worshiped. 

That the story of Isis and Osiris is a mythical account 
of Chaacmol and Moo, from all the circumstances con- 
nected with it, according to the relations of the priests of 
Egypt that tally so closely with what we learn in Chi- 
chen-Itza from the bas-reliefs, it seems impossible to 
doubt. 

Effectively, Osiris and Isis are considered as king and 
queen of the Amenti — the region of the West — the man- 
sion of the dead, of the ancestors. Whatever may be the 
etymology of the name of Osiris, it is a/aci^, that in the 
sculptures he is often represented with a spotted skin 



78 

suspended near Mm, and Diodorus Siculns says : " That 
" the skin is usually represented without the head ; but 
" some instances where this is introduced show it to be 
' ' the leopard' s or panthef 5." Again, the name of Osiris 
as king of the West, of the Amenti, is always w^ritten, 
in hieroglyphic characters, representing a crouching 
leopard with an eye above it. It is also well known 
that the priests of Osiris wore a leopard skin as their 
ceremonial dress. 

Kow, Chaacmol reigned with his sister Moo, at Chichen- 
Itza, in Mayab, in the land of the West for Egypt. The 
name Chaacmol means, in Maya, a Spotted tiger, a 
leopard; and he is represented as such in all his totems 
in the sculptures on the monuments ; his shield being 
made of the skin of leopard, as seen in the mural 
paintings. 

Osiris, in Egypt, is a myth. Chaacmol, in Mayab, a re- 
ality. A warrior whose mausoleum I have opened; whose 
weapons and ornaments of jade are in Mrs. Le Plongeon's 
possession ; whose heart I have found, and sent a piece 
of it to be analysed by professor Thompson of Worcester, 
Mass.; whose effigy, with his name inscribed on the tablets 
occupying the place of the ears, forms now one of the 
most precious relics in the National Museum of Mexico. 

Isis was the wife and sister of Osiris. As to the ety- 
mology of her name the Maya affords it in Ioin — the 
younger sister. As Queen of the Amenti, of the West, 
she also is represented in hieroglyphs by the same char- 
acters as her husband— a leopard, with an eye above, 
and the sign of the feminine gender an oval or Qgg. But 
as a goddess she is always portrayed with wings ; the 
vulture being dedicated to her; and, as it were, her totem. 

Moo the wife and sister of Chaacmol was the Queen 
of Chichen. She is represented on the Mausoleum of 
Chaacmol as a Macaw (Moo in the Maya language); also 
on the monuments at Uxmal: and the chroniclers tell us 
that she was worshiped in Izamal under the name of 
Kinich-KaJcmo ; reading from right to left the fiery 
macaw with eyes liTce the sun. 



79 

Their protecting spirit is a Serpent, the totem of their 
father Can. Another Egyptian divinity, Apap or Apop, 
is represented under the form of a gigantic serpent 
covered with wounds. Plutarch in his treatise, De 
Iside et stride, tells us that he was enemy to the sun. 

Typho was the brother of Osiris and Isis; for jealousy, 
and to usurp the throne, he formed a conspiration and 
killed his brother. He is said to represent in the Egyp- 
tian mythology, the sea, by some; by others, the sun. 

Aak (turtle) was also the brother of Chaacmol and 
Mob. For jealousy, and to usurp the throne, he killed 
his brother at treason with three thrusts of his spear in 
the back. Around the belt of his statue at Uxmal used 
to be seen hanging the heads of his brothers Cay and 
Chaacmol, together with that of Moo ; whilst his feet 
rested on their flayed bodies. In the sculpture he is 
pictured surrounded by the Sun as his protecting spirit. 
The escutcheon of Uxmal shows that he called the place 
he governed the land of the Sun. In the bas-reliefs of 
the Queen's chamber at Chichen his followers are seen 
to render homage to the Sun ; others, the friends of 
Moo, to the Serpent. So, in Mayab as in Egypt, the Sun 
and Serpent were inimical. In Egypt again this enmity 
was a myth, in Mayab a reality. 

Aeoekis was the brother of Osiris, Isis and Typho. 
His business seems to have been that of a peace-maker. 

Cay was also the brother of Chaacmol, Moo and Aac. 
He was the high pontiff, and sided with Chaacmol and 
Moo in their troubles, as we learn from the mural paint- 
ings, from his head and flayed body serving as trophy 
to Aac as I have just said. 

In June last, among the ruins of Uxmal, I discovered 
a magnificent bust of this personage; and I believe I know 
the place where his remains are concealed. 

Nephthis was the sister of Isis, Osiris, Typho, and 
Aroeris, and the wife of Typho; but being in love with 
Osiris she managed to be taken to his embraces, and she 
became pregnant. That intrigue having been discovered 



1 



80 



by Isis, she adopted the child that Nephthis, fearing the 
anger of her husband, had hidden, brought him up as her 
own under the name of Anubis. Nephthis was also 
called Nike by some. 

Nic or NiCTE was the sister of Chaacmol, Mod, Aac, 
and Cay, with whose name I find always her name as- 
sociated in the sculptures on the monuments. Here the 
analogy between these personages would seem to differ, 
still further study of the inscriptions may yet prove the 
Egyptian version to contain some truth. JVic or JVicte 
means flower ; a cast of her face, with a flower sculp- 
tured on one cheek, exists among my collections. 

We are told that three children were born to Isis and 
Osiris : Horus, Macedo, and Harpocrates. Well, in the 
scene painted on the walls of Chaacmol' s funeral cham- 
ber, in which the body of this warrior is represented 
stretched on the ground, cut open under the ribs for the 
extraction of the heart and visceras, he is seen sur- 
rounded by his wife, his sister JVic, his mother Zoo, and 
four children. 

I will close these similes by mentioning that TTiotJi 
was reputed the preceptor of Isis ; and said to be the 
inventor of letters, of the art of reckoning, geometry, 
astronomy, and is represented in the hieroglyphs under 
the form of a baboon (cynocephalus). He is one of the 
most ancient divinities among the Egyptians. He had 
also the office of scribe in the lower regions, where he was 
engaged in noting down the actions of the dead, and pre- 
senting or reading them to Osiris. One of the modes of 
writing his name in hieroglyphs, transcribed in our 
common letters, reads NuMa; a word most appro- 
priate and suggestive of his attributes, since, accord- 
ing to the Maya language, it would signify to 
understand, to perceive, Nuctah: while his name 
Thoth, maya tliot means to scatter flowers ; hence 
knowledge. In the temple of death at Uxmal, at the 
foot of the grand staircase that led to the sanctuary, 
at the top of which 1 found a sacrificial altar, there were 



81 

six cynocepliali in a sitting posture, as Thoth is repre- 
sented by the Egyptians. They were placed three in a 
row each side of the stairs. Between them was a plat- 
form where a skeleton, in a kneeling posture, used to be. 
To-day the cynocephali have been removed. They are in 
one of the yard of the principal house at the Hacienda of 
TJxmal. The statue representing the kneeling skele- 
ton lays, much defaced, where it stood when that ancient 
city was in its glory. 

In the mural paintings at Chichen-Itza, we again find the 
baboon (Cynocephalus) warning Moo of impending danger. 
She is pictured in her home, which is situated in the midst 
of a garden, and over which is seen the royal insignia. A 
basket, painted blue, full of bright oranges, is symbolical 
of her domestic happiness. She is sitting at the door. 
Before her is an individual pictured physically deformed, 
to show the ugliness of his character and by the flatness 
of his skull, want of moral qualities, (the proving that the 
learned men of Mayab understood phrenology). He is in 
an persuasive attitude ; for he has come to try to seduce 
her in the name of another. She rejects his offer: and, with 
her extended hand, protects the armadillo, on whose shell 
the high priest read her destiny when yet a child. In a 
tree, just above the head of the man, is an ape. His hand 
is open and outstretched, both in a warning and threat- 
ening position. A serpent {can), her protecting spirit, is 
seen at a short distance coiled, ready to spring in her de- 
fense. Near by is another serpent, entwined round the 
trunk of a tree. He has wounded about the head another 
animal, that, with its mouth open, its tongue protruding, 
looks at its enemy over its shoulder. Blood is seen 
oozing from its tongue and face. This picture forcibly 
recalls to the mind the myth of the garden of Eden. For 
here we have the garden, the fruit, the woman, the 
tempter. 

As to the charmed leopard skin worn by the African 
warriors to render them invulnerable to spears, it would 
seem as if the manner in which Chaacmol met his 



82 

death, by being stabbed with a spear, had been known 
to their ancestors ; and that they, in their superstitious 
fancies, had imagined that by wearing his totem, it would 
save them from being wounded with the same kind of 
weapon used in killing him. Let us not laugh at such 
a singular conceit among uncivilized tribes, for it still pre- 
vails in Europe. On many of the French and German 
soldiers, killed during the last Grerman war, were found 
talismans composed of strips of paper, parchment or 
cloth, on which were written supposed cabalistic words 
or the name of some saint, that the wearer firmly believed 
to be possessed of the power of making him invulnerable. 

I am acquainted with many people — and not ignorant — 
who believe that by wearing on their persons rosaries, 
made in Jerusalem and blessed by the Pope, they enjoy 
immunity from thunderbolts, plagues, epidemics and 
other misfortunes to which human flesh is heir. 

That the Mayas were a race autochthon on this western 
continent and did not receive their civilization from Asia 
or Africa, seems a rational conclusion, to be deduced 
from the foregoing facts. If we had nothing but their 
name to prove it, it should be sufficient, since its etymol- 
ogy is only to be found in the American Maya language. 

They cannot be said to have been natives of Hindostan 
since we are told that, in very remote ages, Maya^ a 
prince of the Bavanas, established himself there. We 
do not find the etymology of his name in any book 
where mention is made of it. We are merely told that 
he was a wise magician, a great architect, a learned as- 
tronomer, a powerful Asoura (demon), thirsting for bat- 
tles and bloodshed: or, according to the Sanscrit, a God- 
dess, the mother of all beings that exist — gods and men. 

Very little is known of the Mayas of Afghanistan, ex- 
cept that they call themselves Mayas, and that the 
names of their tribes and cities are words belonging to 
the American Maya language. 

Who can give the etymology of the name Magi, the 
learned men amongst the Chaldees. We only know 



88 

that its meaning is the same as Maya in Hindostan : 
magician, astronomer, learned man. If we come to 
Greece, where we find again the name Maia, it is men- 
tioned as that of a goddess, as in Hindostan, the mother 
of the gods : only we are told that she was the daughter 
of Atlantis — born of Atlantis. But if we come to the 
lands beyond the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, then we 
find a country called Mayab, on account of the porosity 
of its soil; that, as a sieve {Mayah)^ absorbs the water in 
an incredibly short time. Its inhabitants took its name 
from that of the country, and called themselves Mayas. 
It is a fact worthy of notice, that in their hieroglyphic 
writings the sign employed by the Egyptians to signify 
a Lord, a Master, was the image of a sieve. Would not 
this seem to indicate that the western invaders who sub- 
dued the primitive inhabitants of the valley of the Nile, 
and became the lords and masters of the land, were peo- 
ple from Mayab; particularly if we consider that the 
usual character used to write the name of Egypt was the 
sieve, together with the sign of land ? 

We know that the Mayas deified and paid divine 
honors to their eminent men and women after 
their death. This worship of their heroes they un- 
doubtedly carried, with other customs, to the countries 
where they emigrated; and, in due course of time, estab- 
lished it among their inhabitants, who came to forget that 
Mayab was a locality, converted it into a personalty: and 
as some of their gods came from it, Maya was consid- 
ered as the Mother of the Gods, as we see in Hindostan 
and Greece. 

It would seem probable that the Mayas did not receive 
their civilization from the inhabitants of the Asiatic pe- 
ninsulas, for the religious lores and customs they have in 
common are too few to justify this assertion. They 
would simply tend to prove that relations had existed 
between them at some epoch or other ; and had inter- 
changed some of their habits and beliefs as it happens, 
between the civilized nations of our days. This appears 



84 

to be the true side of the question; for in the figures 
sculptured on the obelisks of Copan the Asiatic type is 
plainly discernible; whilst the features of the statues 
that adorn the celebrated temples of Hindostan are, be- 
yond all doubts, American. 

The FACTS gathered from the monuments do not sus- 
tain the theory advanced by many, that the inhabitants 
of tropical America received their civilization from Egypt 
and Asia Minor. On the contrary. It is true that I have 
shown that many of the customs and attainments of the 
Egyptians were identical to those of the Mayas ; but 
these had many religious rites and habits unknown to 
the Egyptians; who, as we know, always pointed towards 
the West as the birthplaces of their ancestors, and wor- 
shiped as gods and goddesses personages who had lived, 
and whose remains are still in Mayab. Besides, the 
monuments themselves prove the respective antiquity of 
the two nations. 

According to the best authorities the most ancient 
monuments raised by the Egyptians do not date further 
back than about 2,500 years B. C. Well, in Ake, a city 
about twenty-five miles from Merida, there exists still 
a monument sustaining thirty-six columns of Jcatuns. 
Each of these columns indicate a lapse of one hundred 
and sixty years in the life of the nation. They then 
would show that 5,760 years has intervened between the 
time when the first stone was placed on the east corner 
of the uppermost of the three immense superposed plat- 
forms that compose the structure, and the placing of the 
last capping stone on the top of the thirty-sixth column. 
How long did that event occur before the Spanish con- 
quest it is impossible to surmise. Supposing, however, 
it did take place at that time ; this would give us a lapse 
of at least 6,100 years since, among the rejoicings of the 
people this sacred monument being finished, the first 
stone that was to serve as record of the age of the nation, 
was laid by the high priest, where we see it to-day. I 
will remark that the name Ake is one of the Egyptians' 



85 

divinities, the third person of the triad of Esneh; always 
represented as a child, holding his linger to his mouth. 
Ake also means 2^ reed. To-day the meaning of the 
word is lost in Yucatan. 

CogoUudo, in his history of Yucatan, speaking of the 
manner in which they computed time, says : 

"They counted their ages and eras, which they in- 
' scribed in their books every twenty years, in lustrums 
' of four years. * * * When five of these lustrums 
' were completed, they called the lapse of twenty years 
' Tcatun, which means to place a stone down upon an- 
' other. * * * In certain sacred buildings and in 
' the houses of the priests every twenty years they 
' place a hewn stone upon those already there. When 
' seven of these stones have thus been piled one over the 
' other began the Ahau katun. Then after the first lus- 
' trum of four years they placed a small stone on the 
' top of the big one, commencing at the east corner; then 
' after four years more they placed another small stone 
' on the west corner ; then the next at the north; and 
^ the fourth at the south. At the end of the twenty 
' years they put a big stone on the top of the small ones: 
' and the column, thus finished, indicated a lapse of one 
' hundred and sixty years." 

There are other methods for determining the approxi- 
mate age of the monuments of Mayab : 

1st. By means of their actual orientation; starting from 
ilnQfact that their builders always placed either the faces 
or angles of the edifices fronting the cardinal points. 

2d. By determining the epoch when the mastodon be- 
came extinct. For, since Can or his ancestors adopted 
the head of that animal as symbol of deity, it is evident 
they must have known it ; hence, must have been con- 
temporary with it. 

3d. By determining when, through some great cata- 
clysm, the lands became separated, and all communica- 
tions between the inhabitants of Maydb and their colo- 
nies were consequently interrupted. If we are to credit 



86 I 

what Psenophis and SoncMs, priests of Heliopolis and 
Sais, said to Solon "that nine thousand years before, the 
visit to them of the Athenian legislator, in consequence 
of great earthquakes and inundations, the lands of the 
West disappeared in one day and a fatal night," then we 
may be able to form an idea of the antiquity of the ruined 
cities of America and their builders. . 

Reader, I have brought before you, without comments, j 

some of the facts, that after ten years of research, the 
paintings on the walls of ChaacmoV s funeral chamber, 
the sculptured inscriptions carved on the stones of the 
crumbling monuments of Yucatan, and a comparative 
study of the vernacular of the aborigines of that country, 
have revealed to us. I have no theory to offer. Many 
years of further patient investigations, the full interpre- 
tation of the monumental inscriptions, and, above all, the 
possession of the libraries of the learned men of Mayab, 
are the sine qua non to form an uncontrovertible one, 
free from the speculations which invalidate all books 
published on the subject heretofore. 

If by reading these pages you have learned something "I 

new, your time has not been lost ; nor mine in writing ' 

them. 



VESTIGES OF THE MAYAS, 



Facts tending to prove that Comtmtnications and Intimate Relations must have 
existed, in very remote times, between the inhabitants of 



M A T A B 



AND THOSE OF 



.A-SI-i^ .A^ISTD _^:FE,IC.A.. 



AUGUSTUS Lis PLONGEON, M. D., 

Member of the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Mass., of ttie California 

Academy of Sciences, and several otlier Scientific Societies. Autlior of various 

Essays and Scientific Works. 




NEW YORK : 
JOHN POLHEMUS, PRINTER AND STATIONER, 
102 NASSAU STREET. 

1881. 



' x.^ 



F 



